Dashiell Hammett Books

The Maltese Falcon

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: Robertson Dean
Length: 7 hours 51 minutes

The definitive masterpiece of the hard-boiled detective genre, The Maltese Falcon first appeared in the pages of Black Mask magazine in 1929 and was almost immediately acknowledged as not only a great crime novel but an enduring masterpiece of American fiction.Tough, cynical PI Sam Spade—a man who, as his creator explained, is “able to take care... Read more

The Maltese Falcon (BBC Radio Crimes)

By: BBC Audio
Narrated by: Full Cast, Jane Lapotaire, Nickolas Grace, Peter Vaughan & Tom Wilkinson
Length: 1 hour 55 minutes

It’s San Francisco, 1928, and Sam Spade is a wisecracking, womanising Private Investigator. Missing husbands and unfaithful wives are his usual stock-in-trade, but when the beautifully distressed Miss Wonderley calls he gets involved in a dangerous caper most people would run a mile from. Miss Wonderley asks Sam’s partner, Miles Archer, to... Read more

The Maltese Falcon

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: William Dufris
Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

The Maltese Falcon is the definitive masterpiece of the hard-boiled detective genre. It introduces legendary PI Sam Spade, a loner who follows his own code and the rules of the street as he zeros in on his partner’s killer and the famous jewel-encrusted bird. Humphrey Bogart immortalized the tough-guy detective in the classic 1941 film. Read more

The Tenth Clew

and Other Op Stories

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: Winston Tharp
Length: 4 hours 31 minutes

Introducing "The Tenth Clew and other Op Stories" by Dashiell Hammett, now available in a captivating digital audiobook format! Step into the world of mystery and intrigue with six gripping tales that will keep you on the edge of your seat:
The Tenth Clew: Dive into a perplexing puzzle as you follow the trail of clues to unravel a mysterious... Read more

Honest Gain

Dicey Cases of the Continental Op

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki & Alison Belle Bews
Length: 7 hours 53 minutes

“Now I’m a detective because I happen to like the work. It pays me a fair salary, but I could find other jobs that would pay more…Now I pass up that twenty-five or thirty thousand of honest gain because I like being a detective, like the work. And liking work makes you want to do it as well as you can. Otherwise there’d be no sense to it. That’s... Read more

Op Stories

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: Winston Tharp
Length: 2 hours 40 minutes

Step into the gritty world of Dashiell Hammett's iconic detective, the 'Op,' with this gripping digital audiobook collection. Immerse yourself in the dark underbelly of crime, deceit, and danger as you follow the Op through five thrilling stories: 'Arson Plus,' 'Crooked Souls,' 'Slippery Fingers,' 'It,' and 'Bodies Piled Up.' Each tale is a... Read more

The Tenth Clew and Eight Other Continental Op Stories

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: Cate Barratt
Length: 8 hours 30 minutes

This collection consists of nine crime novellas which were originally published in magazine form in 1924. The plots of Hammett’s stories were drawn from his actual experience as a Pinkerton detective. Hammett viewed the process of detective work not as the pursuit of a few elusive clues, but rather the tedious business of extracting relevant... Read more

Best Cases of the Continental Op

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: Alison Belle Bews & Stefan Rudnicki
Length: 7 hours 27 minutes

“Half the jobs that come to a private detective are like this one: three or four days—and often as many weeks—have passed since the crime was committed. The police work on the job until they are stumped; then the injured party calls in a private sleuth, dumps him down on a trail that is old and cold and badly trampled, and expects—Oh, well! I... Read more

The Hunter and Other Stories

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: Ray Chase, Brian Holsopple, Donna Postel & Stephen Bowlby
Length: 10 hours 1 minute

Dashiell Hammett is best known as both pioneer and master of American hard-boiled detective fiction, but these dozen and a half stories both affirm that reputation and present him in a different light. Along with the full-length screen treatments On the Make (which became the movie Mr. Dynamite, 1935) and The Kiss-Off (the basis for City... Read more

Return of the Thin Man

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: Scott Brick, Peter Ganim & Nicola Barber
Length: 7 hours 19 minutes

Dashiell Hammett was a crime writer who elevated the genre to true literature, and The Thin Man was Hammett’s last—and most successful—novel. Following the enormous success of “The Thin Man” movie in 1934, Hammett was commissioned to write stories for additional films. He wrote two full-length novellas for the films that became “After the Thin... Read more

The Glass Key

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
Length: 6 hours 22 minutes

Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett's... Read more

The Dain Curse

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
Length: 7 hours 42 minutes

The Continental Op is a short, squat, and utterly unsentimental tank of a private detective. Miss Gabrielle Dain Leggett is young, wealthy, and a devotee of morphine and religious cults. She has an unfortunate effect on the people around her: they have a habit of dying violently. Is Gabrielle the victim of a family curse? Or is the truth about... Read more

Red Harvest

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
Length: 6 hours 26 minutes

Detective-story master Dashiell Hammett gives us yet another unforgettable read in Red Harvest.When the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty—even if that meant taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and... Read more

Whodunit?

Selected Shorts

By: C.S. Montanye, Dashiell Hammett, Ed McBain, Louise Erdrich, Nadine Gordimer & Shirley Jackson
Narrated by: Fionnula Flanagan, John Shea, Hattie Wilson, Isaiah Sheffer, Rene Auberjonois & Robert Sean Leonard
Length: 3 hours 15 minutes

A dashing lineup of elegant crime tales and gritty hardboiled detective stories, alternately menacing and cozy, with two exotic locales, and murder in the mix.

Stories in this set include: Dashiell Hammett's "The Creeping Siamese", performed by John Shea - The Continental Op gets his man C.S. Montanye's "A Shock for the Countess", performed... Read more

Too Many Have Lived - Abridged

Black Mask Audio Magazine

By: Griffith Chase & Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: a full cast
Length: 37 minutes

One of only three Sam Spade short stories, this one involves a blackmailing poet, a seductive chanteuse, her rough-hewn stage-door-johnny, and, of course, murder. Recorded before a live audience in New York. Read more

The Thin Man

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: William Dufris
Length: 5 hours 54 minutes

The Thin Man introduces Nick and Nora Charles, New York’s coolest crime-solving couple.Nick retired from detecting after his wife inherited a tidy sum, but six years later, a pretty blonde spies him at a speakeasy and asks for his help finding her father, an eccentric inventor who was once Nick’s client.Nick can no more resist the case than a... Read more

Black Mask Audio Magazine, Vol. 1 - Abridged

Classic Hard-Boiled Tales from the Original Black Mask

By: various authors, Dashiell Hammett, Hugh B. Cave, Frederick Nebel, Paul Cain, Reuben J. Shay & William Cole
Narrated by: a full cast, Richard Ferrone, Grover Gardner, George Guidall, Anthony Heald, Malcolm Hillgartner, William Hughes, Lorna Raver, Burt Ross, Christine Williams, Tom Weiner, Jeff Woodman, Richard Allen, Kaitlyn Hopkins & Rochelle Savitt
Length: 5 hours 4 minutes

Tough gumshoes, rotten yeggs, and dangerous damesIn the 1930s and '40s, Black Mask was the single most important magazine for the modern mystery field. In its pages writers such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Earl Stanley Gardner reshaped the established view of mystery fiction, creating the "hard-boiled" private eye. Now comes this... Read more