Crooked Souls

By Dashiell Hammett

When the daughter of San Francisco industrialist Harvey Gatewood is kidnapped, the Continental Op and local police are brought in to try to get her back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alien Ebooks
• Release date: May 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667620862

Dashiell Hammett

Samuel Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for his "hard-boiled" detective fiction and the iconic characters he created for his books, including the Continental Op (Red Harvest and the Dain Curse), Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), and Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man). Hammett is considered one of the finest mystery/detective writers of the 20th century. As a young man, Hammett signed up to be an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, but the agency's role in strike-breaking soured Hammett to Pinkerton and he joined the Army in 1918 and served in World War I. While in the Army, Hammett contracted tuberculosis and the ill-effects of his consumption would plague Hammett for the rest of his life. In 1922, Hammett began to publish short stories in some of the popular mystery magazines of the era, particularly Black Mask, for whom he wrote a number of stories featuring his nameless private investigator, the Continental Op. He began producing these stories at a furious rate, eventually expanding into novels - Red Harvest and The Dain Curse - which he serialized in Black Mask prior to publication. In 1930, Hammett wrote The Maltese Falcon, which featured Sam Spade, one of the most popular characters in all of detective fiction. Then, in 1934, Hammett topped himself, creating Nick and Nora Charles, the protagonists of the wildly popular book The Thin Man. Both would later be adapted into successful motion pictures, the latter spawning five sequels. Once Hammett moved to Hollywood and began writing screenplays, his fiction writing almost entirely ceased. His activism in left-wing politics would eventually lead to Hammett being placed on the "blacklist." Hammett's career troubles were exacerbated by his alcoholism and his drinking, in turn, worsened his health. He died of lung cancer in 1961.Despite his life and career struggles later in life, Dashiell Hammett is still considered one of the greatest mystery writers of all time and his work proved to be an inspiration to an entire generation of young authors from Ernest Hemingway to Raymond Chandler and many others.

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COPYRIGHT NOTE

CROOKED SOULS

COPYRIGHT NOTE

This classic work has been reformatted for optimal reading in ebook format on multiple devices. Punctuation and spelling has been modernized where necessary.

Copyright © 2021 by Alien Ebooks.

All rights reserved.

CROOKED SOULS

Dashiell Hammett

Originally published in

The Black Mask, October 15, 1923

Harvey Gatewood had issued orders that I was to be admitted as soon as I arrived, so it took me only a little less than fifteen minutes to thread my way past the doorkeepers, office boys, and secretaries who filled up most of the space between the Gatewood Lumber Corporation’s front door and the president’s private office. His office was large, all mahogany and bronze and green plush, with a mahogany desk as big as a bed in the center of the floor.

Gatewood, leaning across the desk, began to bark at me as soon as the obsequious clerk who had bowed me in bowed himself out.

My daughter was kidnaped last night! I want the bastards that did it if it takes every cent I got!

Tell me about it, I suggested.

But he wanted results, it seemed, and not questions, and so I wasted nearly an hour getting information that he could have given me in fifteen minutes.

He was a big bruiser of a man, something over 200 pounds of hard red flesh, and a czar from the top of his bullet head to the toes of his shoes that would have been at least number twelves if they hadn’t been made to measure.

He had made his several millions by sandbagging everybody that stood in his way, and the rage he was burning up with now didn’t make him