Nightmare Town: and Other Stories

The Continental Op #2.4

by Dashiell Hammett

A collection of some of the finest stories from Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Short Stories, Noir, Crime, Detective, Hard Boiled

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Also wrote as Peter Collinson, Daghull Hammett, Samuel Dashiell, Mary Jane Hammett

Dashiell Hammett, an American, wrote highly acclaimed detective fiction, including The Maltese Falcon (1930) and The Thin Man (1934).

Samuel Dashiell Hammett authored hardboiled novels and short stories. He created Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) among the enduring characters. In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on film, Hammett "is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time" and was called, in his obituary in the New York Times, "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction."

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashiell...

Reviews

[Adam McPhee]

Nightmare Town: lot of action but it's just a guy with a walking stick, so it isn't really thrilling. Reveal is great the entire town is a front for a bootlegging operation and about to burn for the insurance money but just sort of blurted out at the end

House Dick: our first Continental Op story! Reads almost like a Dick Tracy comic, but I loved it. Three bodies fall out of a hotel closet, and it turns out it's all a case of mistaken identity in a sort of gang war

Ruffian's Wife: a good crime story told form the POV of a wandering adventurer's stay-at-home wife

The Man Who Killed Dan Odams: the best story so far. Great forward action that keeps you guessing at what happened before the story started, and I didn't see the twist coming at all the woman whose house he invades is the widow of Dan Odams which isn't just a twist but lends an extra poignancy to the proceedings. Or rather, it highlights a certain moral ambiguity which turns this into something more than a simple adventure. A western and a crime story, I'm surprised this has never been adapted into a movie.

Night Shots: A locked room murder mystery, or close to it, I guess. Starring the Continental Op. Atmospheric. The villain of the piece (gambling, adulterous, spendthrift scoundrel etc who jokes and laughs at the Op's work) is not the murderer, which is a nice touch. And the solution is inventive but plausible: the old man sick in bed was trying to kill his own nurse because he thought he confessed the years ago murder of his wife to her. He makes it look like an assassin is bungling the job trying to kill him. Even better punchline: the nurse says he didn't confess anything, just made her afraid because he was shouting obscenities while doped up.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

For Hammett fans who may have found themselves saddened by the fact that he wrote so few novels, this collection is something of a find and a reason to rejoice.

The introduction tells us that he wrote something like 100 stories - some of which appear in other collections. But the 20 found here show the writer in top form. None of them give the suggestion of someone reaching to 'find his voice'; he's already talking much like the Hammett of his novels (esp. in the seven 'Continental Op' stories that are entertainingly included).

The range in storytelling is impressive; Hammett finds plenty of ways to place crime in fresh settings. (I kept in mind that his own reality was largely responsible for that; his personal experience of being employed in detective work for some years.)

I don't think there's a story here that doesn't allow the reader to zip through it; each of them holds that kinetic (and often sly) 'something' - even the final one, 'The First Thin Man'... which may not have been Hammett's own title for it since it was left unfinished when he gave it the heave-ho in order to completely re-fashion it as 'The Thin Man'. It ends up being fascinating comparing both versions of the tale. The first one doesn't even have Nick and Nora Charles in it (!). And, while one can tell the superiority of the final product, its first form is also riveting.

The writing, of course, emphasizes the hard-boiled but Hammett's wit can be found peppered throughout - for example, in 'They Can Only Hang You Once' (a murder tale which takes on an element of farce):

A young woman came in crying angrily, "Wally, that old fool has--" She broke off with a hand to her breast when she saw Spade.

Spade and Binnett had risen together. Binnett said suavely, "Joyce, this is Mr. Ames. My sister-in-law, Joyce Court."

Spade bowed.

Joyce Court uttered a short, embarrassed laugh and said: "Please excuse my whirlwind entrance."

I'll have to remember that line the next time I make a whirlwind entrance.

An aside: Not that I'm making any claim here but, twice in the collection, Hammett seems to delve into gay territory - first in the area of homoeroticism (from the male narrator in 'His Brother's Keeper'):

I started to say something and then stopped, and I had a goofy idea that I would like to kiss him or something and then he was climbing through the ropes and the gong rang.
...........
Loney was not looking sick anymore. I could tell he was excited because his face was set hard and still. I like to remember him that way, he was awful good-looking.

An affected thing (shall we say) is off-and-running in the first-person narrative of 'A Man Named Thin':

Papa was, though I may be deemed an undutiful son or saying it, in an abominable mood. His chin protruded across the desk at me in a fashion that almost justified the epithet of brutal which had once been applied to it by an unfriendly journalist; and his mustache seemed to bristle with choler of its own, though this was merely the impression I received. It would be preposterous to assume actual change in the mustache which, whatever Papa's humor, was always somewhat irregularly salient.

"... the epithet of brutal"?! Hmm... seems more gay than just... elite. My fedora's off to ya, Dash!

'Nightmare Town' starts off with a story of the same name. It is a yarn of non-stop action so high-octane it almost reaches the level of comical. The rest of the stories are not nearly as zany but the tone is nevertheless set: the deadly with the tongue-in-cheek; add talent and stir.

[Mark]

This is a short story collection a found courtesy somebody on GR, it really has expanded my reading world and this seems to become one of those treasures in a bookish sense I am really very glad to read.

Nightmare Town - Steve Threefull awakes after a crazy bet in a little town where about everything seems to be off. It kind of tickles his curiosity and when he finds out what is going on he can only be surprised.

House Dick - Why are there three dead people inside an hotel room?- Continental Op does find out and the solution leaves you shaking your head with pure disbelieve and total surprise. Grand ending.

Ruffian's wife - She is threatened in her own house and when her man comes home she finds out more than she cared to know. A story about a woman and her perspective. Well written

The man who killed Dan Odams - locked up because he shot a man in a fair fight, he takes his chance to escape jail. The man who killed Dan Odams finds a place to hide in safety with a widow. Another brilliant little gem that does give a great kick in the last paragraph.

Bight shots The Continental op gets send to a house where somebody took a shot at the sick and old patriarch of the family and nobody saw anything. When the next night the same happens again and somebody else gets hurt the Op ahs an idea and it is an uneasy one.

Zigzags of treachery
In which the continental Op gets asked to investigate the suicide/murder of a Docter by his wife, especially when his first wife comes forward with her claims after she visited the Doctor when he was alive. The detective will have to find out what really happened with the good Doctor and his first wife. Another surprising little tale of human drama.

The assistent murderer
Private detective Alec Rush is not the typical PI in that there is nothing reaaly attractive about him, in fact he's quite ugly, and women aren't falling all over him. But as as a former policeman he does know his stuff. He paid to check out a woman who gets followed and discovers murder and mayhem. a well written story sometimes a wee bit confusing.

His brother's keeper
A boxer and his brother and a major fight on Saturday evening. At the end one boxer wins and somebody dies. Well told but perhaps somewhat shortish.

Two sharp knives
A man comes to town by train and gets picked up by the chief of police as there is a warrant out on him. Give the man a nice locked room and then the man kills himself. What really happened? - well written but somewhat predictable too soon.

more will follow...........

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

While two collections of Hammett’s early stories were published in 1966 (ed., L. Hellman) and 1974 (ed., Steven Marcus), the manuscripts were then long tied up in litigation over the Lillian Hellman estate. The first critical collection to appear after the estate was settled, was Nightmare Town and Other Stories, edited by William F. Nolan, one of Hammett’s Biographers — and it is an outstanding collection of stories. In 2001, the Library of America edition came out, but this was completed superseded by Layman and Rivett’s Big Book of the Continental Op (2011), which contains only one story that was also printed in Nolan’s Nightmare Town (“Who Killed Bob Teal?”). In 2013, Layman and Rivett published a collection of previously unpublished material titled Hunter and Other Stories. So the best way to read Hammett’s stories is simply to ignore the LoA edition, and to read Nolan’s 1999 collection, followed by Layman and Rivett’s two collections of 2011 and 2013.

Hammett, as is known, only published five novels, and stopped writing in 1934. The rest of his life was tragic and unproductive (though Nolan thinks that much of Lillian Hellman’s playwriting was heavily indebted to Hammett). Since Red Harvest was published in 1929, I always assumed that the early stories, published in Black Mask and elsewhere, were basically juvenilia and not worth the effort of reading.

How wrong I was! As this volume proves!!

These stories are mostly outstanding and, from the very beginning are fully mature. Many of them involve the Continental Op; and only one is repeated in the Big Book. The last five stories fall into another category, however. Three of them were written in 1932, because of the public demand for stories involving Sam Spade (who, Hammett was done with), and on account of the money that Hammett could earn from writing these. They are good stories, but one senses that there is a certain reluctance in them. The final story is an early draft of the Thin Man, very different from that of the published volume, but it is only a partial draft, about 65 pages.

Anyway, for anyone who is interested in Hammett, this book is a must read.

“Nightmare Town” (1924) [4.5]

“House Dick” (1924) [5+] [Continental Op]

“Ruffian’s Wife”(1925) [5]

“The Man Who Killed Dan Odams” (1923-1926) [5]

“Night Shots”(1923-1926) [4.5]

“Zigzags of Treachery” (1923-1926) [5.5] [Continental Op: great story/novella] *

“The Assistant Murderer”(1923-1926) [5.5] [the ugly detective (Alec Rush); great intricate story] *

“His Brother’s Keeper” (1934) [5.5] *

“Two Sharp Knives” (1934) [4]

“Death on Pine Street”(1923-1926) [4.5] [Continental Op]

“The Second-Story Angel” (1923-1926) [4+]

“Afraid of a Gun”(1923-1926) [4]

“Tom, Dick, or Harry”(1923-1926) [3.5] [unnamed Continental Op]

“One Hour”(1923-1926) [3.5] [Continental Op]

“Who Killed Bob Teal?”(1924) [5] [Continental Op]

“A Man Called Spade” (1932) [4+] [Spade investigates a murder…]

“Too Many Have Lived” (1932) [4] [Spade investigates another murder]

“They Can Only Hang You Once” (1932) [4+] [Spade investigates yet a third murder]

“A Man Named Thin” [—]

“The First Thin Man” [—]

[Guillermo Galvan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nightmare Town is a collection of short stories from the originator of the hard-boiled crime genre, Dashiell Hammett. As a private eye for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in San Francisco during the Prohibition Era, Hammett experienced shootouts, knifings, stakeouts, and cold-blooded murder for cash. These experiences convinced him of one thing: everyone is a suspect. He began writing short stories based on his detective work for pulp fiction magazines.

Nightmare Town is a book of high-quality stories punctuated by brilliant gems. This book shows Hammett as a versatile writer able to work in any area concerning crime. He can use the first or second person perspective and put readers in foggy city streets or little desert towns with a whole cast of psychologically-unique characters.

Several stories break away entirely from the detective backdrop. “The Man Who Killed Dan Odams” centers on an escaped convict hunted across a barren countryside. He’s wounded and desperate, and nobody is going to take him in alive. This story has the life-or-death feeling of John Steinbeck. “His Brother’s Keeper” is told in the first person perspective of a young boxer who just can’t figure out the deadly plot closing in on his brother. “Afraid of a Gun” lays out the naked fear of a gangster with a phobia of guns.

The stories range from crimes of passion to bone splintering violence. In every instance, there are tightly-drawn plots unfolding at an exciting pace. The dialogue is original and enjoyable. Hammett’s prose is economical, achieving the greatest impact and solidity with the least number of words possible. He tells complex mysteries in a barebones style.

Nightmare Town is a great book because it gives lowbrow subject matter a literary-grade treatment. For all the pulp, noir, and crime readers out there, get back to your roots with these hard-boiled masterpieces.

[Bruce Beckham · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoy the punchy prose of Dashiell Hammett’s novels, then his short stories will knock you out. In this anthology 20 mini thrillers come at you like slugs from a semi-automatic. The cold steel has stood the test of time.

There is an ever-changing cast of spiky characters, shards of broken glass embedded in a wall you can’t stop yourself from scaling, bloodied hands or not; gangsters, killers, fraudsters, each one surgically described by a few deft strokes of the author’s scalpel of a pen. Towards the end, you even get to meet that Satan-lookalike, Sam Spade, hero of The Maltese Falcon.

My edition of the book (Vintage Crime, September 2000) carries an introduction by William F Nolan – a fascinating and insightful biography of Hammett. I was glad to buy it just for this.

[Carla Remy · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a writer of mysteries there's much to learn from Hammett's shorter fiction from the 1920s pulp periodicals. He's the best. Okay, granted, the simplicity of some of the mysteries wouldn't fly today. And, truly, I get a bit bored with hardboiled detectives. But one has to keep in mind that the cliche hadn't formed yet, that Hammett created the cliche. He's a great writer.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a necessary train ride, off the eastcoast grid to the center of the rust belt. It was a necessary six hours, even before whistle-stops and unexplained lulls were counted in. After a high-proof holiday and a few sleepless celebrations, the ride back to college was generally comfortable and quiet.

This was still the era of The National Limited, The Broadway Limited and other time-honored routes. New fabric protective mats every trip on the shoulders of the seats. Smoking cars, Pullman Captains and lounge cars with a bartender; linen tablecloths in the dining car, a single-stem carnation in a weighted glass flute on every table.

Somehow like ships, long-distance trains sometimes seem to lose the edge of the wind, waste their energy on the flats and find themselves grounded somewhere, becalmed, on a siding near ... nothing at all. On a good day, that happened only once or twice.

It was my luck to slip into a coma-like sleep after the doldrums and false starts, lulled by the quieting of the train from the light snow falling on the rails. When I woke up the car was pitch black and gliding through unfamiliar terrain. Conductors no longer loudly announced the stops, but headed down the aisles whispering "somewheretown, next," or "mumbleville, arriving shortly," just under their breath, so as not to disturb the pervasive, rumbling quiet. I didn't recall ever hearing these towns before. I had overslept my stop.

In a disquieted lurch, I grabbed my luggage, perhaps including the manual typewriter's carrier case that disguised a thick pack of Lps, and went for the exit in bloodshot fury. Having seen this sort of Holden Caulfield reenactment before, the night porter suggested that I wait until the city of Johnstown came up, where they had, he explained, taxis, hotels, lights. At this hour. There were no more trains today, and I'd have to overnight in this unforeseen urban center, if it wouldn't be too much trouble.

The meeker and more polite the Pullman porters got, the more everyone knew that was the sign they were interacting with grand-scale assholes. So you knew at that first lowered glance and demure suggestion that they were still with you but, well, you were pushing your luck. These were generally clever, reasonably paid black men at a time of tricky, changeable racial conditions and unsaid segregation codes; they operated both north and south of the Mason-Dixon line, sometimes in a single trip. They knew how to control carloads of white businessmen with less than a gesture and no fuss. I would wait, in a seat nearby the door, until the glitter of Johnstown's skyline gently shimmered into view.

Finding myself at the only lit building in a scruffy warehouse section of a dead city, I checked into the Penn-Hunt-Dimentia Hotel, where I was tossed the keys to a 13th floor doornumber somewhere in the thousands. Nothing added up, or made much sense, and the elevators were upstairs, on a darkened mezzanine landing.

My suite's ambience wasn't aided by the bare-bulb ceiling fixture, so I switched that off and went back to the coma I had been missing since the train. It wasn't till the cold light of day that I began to have a real look around.

College wasn't at any danger of going anywhere in my absence, so I began to have ideas about having some kind of adventure. Something unusual, explainably unavoidable, while doing my duty to get back, within a completely reasonable delay. As soon as I called down for "room service" it became obvious that I might want to get back on a train quicker than all that. Seems there was no such thing, not now, not ever, no sir, and it wasn't really understood very well by the morning desk staff, who seemed pleasurably confused by the inquiry.

As I spoke I was looking around. The Hotel was massive. The train station far below the window ledges fit perfectly into the picture. I was in a depression era city, bleak and gray and unappealing in the hard winter light. The closed-up storefronts on the street below must have served an industrious populace once, forty or fifty years ago, but were now immobilized, seized-up and still, like the barber's poll with it's stripes derailed, skewed and dusty, the stopped station clock, and the shop windows featuring broken mannequin parts.

The room was threadbare of course, but nondescript and banal in the décor of the Thirties Commerce Traveller, flat and unadorned by design. The phone I was holding in my hand was a kind of museum-piece, so obsolete as to seem installed for culture shock, curated for its shiny, black antiquity.

Dashiell Hammett's Nightmare Town is at its best when it gets to these kind of banalities, the astringent quality in an Edward Hopper interior.

It hardly needs saying that I was down that old elevator to the street, and out of there long before the first train of the day rumbled into mumbletown. Suspiciously heavy typewriter case in hand, I did have the whole rest of college to consider, didn't I?

[Ben Winch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clearly, Hammett is a legend. The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key are both great, but I’d rate the title piece of this collection, a short novella of 40 pages, just as highly. It’s got everything: it’s painstakingly and impeccably written, it’s fast, it’s fun, it’s furious. The only reason no-one’s made a movie out of it yet is surely that it gets hidden away in these kinds of collections. It’s a hoot! It’s so ridiculous it verges on metafiction, both a parody of a genre and a supreme example of that genre. Most of the other stories are high quality too, and the writing is so consistently polished that it’s hard to imagine how the young Hammett could have earned a reasonable wage for his efforts, publishing in pulp magazines alongside writers who could churn out their stories on auto-pilot. All of this goes some way to proving that Hammett was an artist, who just happened to write crime because, as a professional detective himself, it was what he knew. This guy is one of a kind.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a great time reading this collection. My favorites in it were:

+ Nightmare Town, the titular novella about a corrupt desert town and two people who try to escape it.

+ "Ruffian's Wife," a short story about a woman who loses confidence in her husband when he turns out to not be the big, bad tough guy she believes him to be.

+ "The Man Who Killed Dan Odoms," a short story about a man seeking sanctuary on a remote farm as he hides from people who want to avenge the man he killed.

+ "The Second-Story Angel," a short story about a writer who gets a surprise visitor in the middle of the night, then learns something even more surprising about her a few weeks later.

+ "Tom, Dick, or Harry," a short story about a robbery that has a really cool twist on the identity of the robber.

+ "A Man Called Spade," a short story featuring Sam Spade, the detective from The Maltese Falcon, and has him solve a murder that seems to be open-and-shut, but isn't.

[Kirk Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who wouldn't want to read a collection of 20 great Detective/Mystery short stories by the Old Master himself? Dashiell Hammett is credited as the writer responsible for the creation of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction. And why is it so good? Authenticity. Hammett worked for seven years as a Pinkerton Agent. His stories are close enough to some of his actual cases to keep the stories realistic. Another positive feature is that all were written in a 12 year time period 1922-1934. This creates a cohesiveness and flow as you move from story to story. *** I might also point out that these somewhat defy typical stereotypes. Most occur in the western region of the United States. Intelligence and logic are his weapons, guns appear occasionally. The title story lives up to its description, it truly is a nightmare of a town. Another story, The Man Who killed Dan Odams, reads as a modern western and takes place in Montana. I was really impressed with the diversity. For those seeking the familiar, there are three Sam Spade stories, and seven featuring The Continental Op (operative). Fantastic writing, there is not a stinker in the lot. I would say that to avoid too much of a good thing, it would be good to read 2-3 at a time and stretch it over a 6 month period. A great book to own!

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't read too much of this in one sitting, you may start your own crime wave! Also the stories near the end are not that good, this being one of the last collection of Hammett's short stories, some of these saw the barrel's nether regions.

Nightmare Town - Answers the question "How much death and violence can be crammed into a short story?", makes Red Harvest look sane by comparison.

House Dick - How many bodies can you put in a closet?

Ruffian's Wife - Maybe the only Hammett story told from a woman's perspective, and you can't trust dames.

The Man Who Killed Dan Odams - Revenge served Western style.

Night Shots - Don't overthink things, people have all sorts of reasons for hating you.

I'm not going to bother with the rest, too gimmicky with plots and twists. A decent read but I'd recommend reading other collections than this one.

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dashiell Hammett's reputation as one of the masters of detective fiction is built more on his novels. This volume shows that his short stories can stand on their own as well. Each of the 20 stories reflect Hammett's past as a Pinkerton man in their detective heroes, sleuths who doggedly go about solving a variety of crimes. While half of the stories feature his well-known detectives the Continental Op and Sam Spade, the others are equally interesting. Reading them ought to be required of all aspiring mystery writers. Even if you are not one, they are still good fun.

[Peter Allum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only for Hammett completists.

This compilation pulls together 19 short stories published between 1923 and 1934 plus ten chapters of an incomplete, early draft of The Thin Man.

Not a few of the short stories feature a private investigator (Hammett's one-time profession) hired to handle cases such as missing persons, suspected workplace fraud, or mysterious death threats. Hammett's PI often works alongside the local police who, while perhaps not the sharpest of brains, share an interest in delivering justice. The cases, once resolved, typically involve small-scale criminality by individuals or couples lured by the promise of easy money (often grifters drifting round the country). Only one story features a corrupt cop, and he is an isolated bad apple among his colleagues. Similarly, only one case (the titular Nightmare Town, 1924) features mob-level criminality and, here, the scenario is too ridiculous to be plausible.

The value in these stories comes from the rich tapestry of criminality, both male and female, with their quirky physical and emotional characteristics. However, there is something self-defeating about crime fiction in a short story format. Tackling a full-length novel, the reader's pleasure involves absorbing the facts of the relevant mystery, following the gradual accumulation of new evidence, hazarding guesses as to the guilty party (usually wrong, misled by literary red herrings), and then absorbing the final denouement (often indicating the guilt of the least likely character). In Hammett's short stories, this progression is severely compressed to fit into perhaps fifteen pages. The PI gets the case, interviews those involved, follows up a lead or two, survives a blow to the head or a threatened shooting, and "boom" announces the case closed and explains in a page or two how the various pieces fit together. Indeed, one case works out so smoothly that the title, One Hour, refers to the entire period of the investigation.

By the standards of the typical contributions to the pulp fiction mags of the 1920s and 30s (notably Black Mask), Hammett's work must have stood out for its realism, elegance, and innovation. Taken in isolation, however, these stories are somewhat underwhelming and the quality of the compilation definitely drops off in the last half dozen stories. The collection is best for Hammett completists and features a nice biographical summary by the author William F. Nolan.

My Dashiell Hammett reviews
Nightmare Town: Stories (1923-34), 3*
The Maltese Falcon (1929), 5*
The Thin Man (1933), 4*

[Joe Santoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took me alot longer to get through than I expected... the Maltese Falcon was just a page turning pleasure, I thought I would buzz through these just a quickly.

While you still get an amazing feel of each case, as if you where a witness on the side of the road, it many of these shorter stories there's just a little too much detail. There are definitely times where they read more like a police report than a story.. which, given Hammett's background, they may well be.

The Continental Op also isn't nearly the character Sam Spade is.. he's really more just a run of the mill PoV character that doesn't really have a whole lot of personality. The stories are still very well told and interesting, but the heroes and villains often are just there, rather than popping off the page with personality,

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read Nightmare Town: Stories years ago, back when noir for me was still just a cinematic mood—Venetian blinds, cigarette smoke curling under a single desk lamp, and someone with a fedora saying, “Listen, sweetheart.”

It wasn’t until Hammett that I realised noir in print is a completely different animal—leaner, meaner, and far more dangerous than its Hollywood cousin. Re-reading the collection yesterday felt like walking back into an alley I’d explored before, only this time I knew where the shadows were hiding… but they still managed to surprise me.

Hammett’s short stories are not gentle things. They don’t pet your head or offer moral closure. They’re more like quick, sharp encounters in a bad part of town—you come away with the thrill of survival and maybe a small cut you didn’t notice until later.

When I first read them, I was dazzled by the rhythm, the hard-boiled swagger, the cynical wisecracks. This time, I found myself paying more attention to the silences, the moments between the dialogue, the unspoken menace that tells you something’s about to go wrong—and it will.

The title story, Nightmare Town, still packs the same sucker punch. It’s not just a tale of corruption—it’s a blueprint of how an entire civic structure can rot from the inside out, and how the rot wears a smile. In my first read, I got caught up in the twisty plot.

Yesterday, I saw more of the mechanics—the way Hammett uses setting almost as a character. The dusty streets, the oppressive heat, the stench of something foul just beyond the edge of sight—it’s as if the town itself is running a long con.

Reading Hammett after years of other crime fiction is a bit like going back to black coffee after too many sugary lattes. It’s bitter, strong, and clarifies your palate.

You realise how much of modern thriller writing owes to him—the clipped sentences, the refusal to waste a single adjective, the commitment to moral ambiguity. And yet, what I appreciated more on this revisit was his versatility. The stories shift in tone and scale—some are tight little puzzles, others broad swaths of violence and deceit. Each is its own miniature world, operating by rules you can’t always predict.

What struck me harder this time was Hammett’s lack of sentimentality. No one here is “good” in the traditional sense—only degrees of compromised. His heroes aren’t shining knights—they’re professionals, opportunists, sometimes reluctant redeemers.

That doesn’t make them less compelling; it makes them more recognisable. In The Gutting of Couffignal, for instance, the narrator’s voice is pure professional detachment, but underneath it you feel the weariness, the way long familiarity with danger dulls the moral compass.

Re-reading in 2025 also put me in a different headspace. The world feels more cynical than when I first picked up this collection. Maybe that’s why the stories hit harder—Hammett’s America, with its corrupt cops, crooked politicians, and desperate hustlers, doesn’t feel like distant history. It feels like a funhouse mirror version of our own headlines. There’s a strange comfort in recognising that cynicism isn’t new—it’s just wearing different suits.

But there’s also a craft lesson here. Hammett never bludgeons you with description; he hands you just enough to make your own mental picture, and then trusts you to keep up. Rereading it, I noticed how much of the storytelling happens in the reader’s mind—what’s left unsaid, the gaps you’re forced to fill with your own suspicions.

That’s a rare generosity in a writer, and a risky one. It’s also what makes the stories linger like cigarette smoke in your clothes.

Closing the book this time, I didn’t feel like I’d “returned” to Nightmare Town. I felt like I’d survived it again—walked its crooked streets, ducked a few punches, and left with the sense that the city would still be there, waiting for me to stumble back someday.

And maybe I will. After all, in Hammett’s world, the nightmare is never really over—it’s just resting between cases.

[Aditya · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engrossing introduction to Hammett and a delight to lovers of hard boiled crime fiction. There isn't a single shocker but neither is there a standout. The stories are crisply written with late twists that range from inspired to farcical. Some of the stories do appear dated but it isn't too distracting. Overall a good concoction of hard-boiled sensibilities and old school whodunits but falls well short of greatness, a word often used to describe Hammett's major works. Rating 3/5.

[Mohammed Abdikhader Firdhiye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vintage Hammet writing in the stories of this collection.

I read it most for The 7 Continental OP stories but there were several other stories of quality that was about people that wasnt detectives.

Hammett could have written any kind of story he wanted and pulled it off.

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nightmare Town by Dashiell Hammett
We have one surprise after another
- And men fall down, if not like flies, at least in an unusual number
- But hey, this is the Nightmare Town, remember?

Dashiell Hammett is best known for The Maltese Falcon that has been included on the TIME list of best novels.
And adapted for the big screen, with Humphrey Bogart in the title role, a super star that liked to whine- I have learned recently.

At the beginning of this story, a Ford car nearly kills a woman…and not just once, but twice, even if only unintentionally.
The driver is so drunk that he cannot stand on his feet and tries to challenge the Marshall, when he arrives to take him.
This will be our hero, albeit he does not look the part, with all this behavior there would be no Sam Spade.

Nevertheless, once sober, the man is the best we can find in this Nightmare Town and the rest appear to be connected…all.

When Steve Threefall- our Superman- appears in court, he is charged on a few counts, including drunk driving.

- You are sentenced to pay $ 165 and 80 cents or jail
- Do I have the money, he asks the Marshall
- Exactly the amount

This raises questions as to the honesty of the officials of this place called Izzard, for how could you judge on exactly the sum in the man’s wallet?

We then meet Nova and a good number of the other personages who populate this town, a surprising collection for a short story.
There is the rich owner of property, apparently most of the town, and his son, the girl who nearly got killed and who works at the post office, a banker, the doctor, a new friend called Kamp, only the latter dies almost instantly.
After they spend a few hours together, playing poker and exchanging pleasantries, as they walk on the road, Steve and Kamp are attacked by a few men who have weapons and after a serious fight, Kamp is stabbed to death.
Steve has to see a doctor and as it happens in a small town, you meet the few that you know again and again.
Nova leaves in the house of the local doctor and she is just being burgled when the knight on shining armor arrives.

- From here on there is one surprise after another
- And men fall down, if not like flies, at least in an unusual number
- But hey, this is the Nightmare Town, remember?

Since there is no spoiler alert, I would need to stop without revealing what happens.
Which should be hard, for the knack, what is important in this story are the plot and the unexpected revelations that we have.
The characters are also interesting, with Steve playing the good guy, Nova the damsel in distress and the rest are most of the time villains.
But there are unexpected turns, as aforementioned, with the one that seemed the most despicable making a 180 degrees turn.
Because of his passion, he abandons the camp of the Goodfellas and saves the person he cares for, at great risk to himself.

Reading such stories can be exhilarating, as we have a Hyperhuman fighting the evil and giving us a role model.
If such a character can be so valiant, tough, determined, resilient, dedicated, ready to overcome his hangover and blows, why can’t I?


Enjoyable, good story.

[Christopher Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fairly new collection of lesser known writing by Dashiell Hammett, including some short stories found elsewhere and some I have not read before. Included are two sharp Sam Spade stories, several Continental Op stories, and two new detectives. And finishing out the book is a gem of a story that is sort of a first draft for The Thin Man with one of the new detectives (not Nick Charles) that was forming into a really first rate story but ended at 10 chapters.

Great stuff overall, nearly 5 stars worth but a couple of the stories (including the titular Nightmare Town) were not quite as skilled or interesting, and overall some felt very inexperienced like they were newer magazine stories before Dash really hit his stride.

[Dale Grant · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book honestly just didn’t do it for me. Other than one or two stories they were all pretty similar and for the most part forgettable. This was my second or third run at the book and I definitely slogged through til the finish.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories are fantastic. And that's the word. They are not just very good. Many have a subtle dreamlike quality to them, brought on by the bizarre nature of the plots, the twists, the duplicities, the solutions. Some are not even mysteries. A few are downright funny. I would read Hammett's novels first, particularly The Maltese Falcon and Red Harvest, but this (and the collections dedicated to the Continental Op stories and novellas) are a good addition to your noir bookshelf.

[Mihály Szabó · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nagyon jó volt újraolvasni, emlékeim szerint elsőre ez a kötet kevésbé tetszett, most viszont szinte mindegyik novellát szerettem, különösen persze a Continental Op-sztorikat. Vicces, hogy egyszer angolul, egyszer pedig magyarul is olvastam már elvileg mindegyik elbeszélést, mégsem emlékeztem egynek sem a megoldására. Ami a kötetet illeti, tetszetős a kiadás és a fülszöveghez híven hiánypótló, de azért megérdemelt volna egy kicsit alaposabb szerkesztést (és hogy a kötet címe és a szerző neve miért ismétlődik minden oldal fölött fejlécként, az rejtély – hacsak nem azért, hogy folyamatosan emlékeztessen, milyen hasznos lenne a fejlécben az adott novella címe).

Részletes elemzés helyett inkább most csak kiemelem azokat a részeket amikor a narrátor általános érvényű megjegyzéseket tesz a nyomozómunkáról - ezek a cselekménybe beékelődő rövid részletek is sokat hozzáadnak a szövegek hitelességéhez és élvezeti faktorához, legalábbis számomra.

„A bűntettől mindig vezet nyom az elkövetőhöz. Talán elég bizonytalan ez a nyomvonal […], de mivel egy anyag nem mozoghat úgy, hogy meg ne zavarna más anyagot az útjában, mindig van – kell, hogy legyen – nyom. A nyomozót pedig azért fizetik, hogy megtalálja és kövesse ezt a nyomot.
Gyilkosság esetén néha le lehet rövidíteni az utat, és közvetlen a nyom végére jutni – de ehhez ismerni kell az indítékot. Az indíték ugyanis gyakran erősen csökkenti a lehetőségek számát, sőt néha közvetlenül a bűnösre mutat.”

„Nem szeretem az ékesszólást: ha nem elég hatásos ahhoz, hogy megérintse az embert, akkor fárasztó; ha meg elég hatásos, akkor csak összezavarja az ember gondolatait.”

„A követésnek négy szabálya van: az ember lehetőség szerint mindig a célszemély előtt maradjon; soha ne próbáljon meg elbújni előle; viselkedjen természetesen, történjék akármi; soha ne nézzen a célszemély szemébe. Ha az ember ezeket betartja, akkor egy magándetektívnek nincs egyszerűbb a követésnél, leszámítva persze a különleges körülményeket.”

„Az, hogy a gondnok azonosította a fiút, semmit sem ért, akárhonnét is nézzük. Gyakran még a pozitív és határozott azonosítás sem elég. Sokan véletlenül – és persze szándékosan is – lejáratták a közvetett bizonyíték intézményét. És az is igaz, hogy gyakran félrevezető lehet egy ilyen bizonyíték. Ám semmi sem veheti fel a versenyt a klasszikus, régimódi és tömény megbízhatatlansággal, ami a tanúvallomásokat jellemzi. Elég bármilyen embert – kivéve egy olyat, aki teljes mértékben ura gondolatainak, valamint érzékszerveinek, és ilyet százezerből egyben lehet csak találni – felizgatni, mutatni neki valamit, aztán pár órára magára hagyni, hadd gondolkozzon, majd a végén megkérdezni. Bárkivel, bármikor, bármibe lefogadok, hogy gyakorlatilag semmi köze annak, amit elmond, ahhoz, amit látott.”

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a swell book. I wish we all still used 1920s slang. I'm not going to be able to stop thinking about that last one.

If you want to take a step back in time to the American 1930’s, this is the book for you. Hammett is most famous for his novel, The Maltese Falcon. He has also written short stories featuring different private eyes, which are featured in this compilation.

While I enjoyed each story, reading one after the other caused them to start blending together. I recommend reading one, picking up another book, then reading another short story from this series. That should keep each story distinct. Unless of course that book you are reading to break up the short stories is another hard-boiled detective novel…

My favorite story was actually the last one in the book. It ends, and if you are me, you are left staring at the last page thinking “But who did it!?!?!” That story got me worked up and I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a couple weeks. Because of that it was one of my favorites and will stay with me. Once I knock down my “TBR Tower” I’ll be picking up The Maltese Falcon for sure!

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[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

By and large, I found the stories in this collection to be overrated, but I certainly wouldn't argue with the cultural impact they had. Hammett put hardboiled fiction on the map and created three of the most memorable detectives in American literary history.
That being said, I don't really care for Hammett when he's not writing detective stories. Several of the pieces in the first half of this collection fall completely flat. But Hammett shines whenever the Continental Op, Sam Spade, or the Thin Man take center stage, making NIGHTMARE TOWN a book well worth reading. I was almost ready to bump it up to four stars, when I discovered that the last 15% of the book consisted of ten chapters of an uncompleted novel that Hammett later used as a springboard for writing THE THIN MAN. Personally, I don't get people who enjoy reading the literary tablescraps of famous authors. There are too many good books out there to waste time on unfinished first drafts, especially when the same author has written a completed version of the story, only somewhat altered (and probably for the better, I'm guessing).
So back down to three stars we go...

[Dulani Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a line in this book that stayed with me:
"If a man says a thing often enough, he is very likely to acquire some sort of faith in it sooner or later."

That's a quote of our current age.

[Ryan Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nightmare Town contains 20 stories by Dashiell Hammett that haven't seen the light of day in decades. It is definitely a nice surprise to have more stories from a writer who left us with too few works.

The stories in Nightmare Town are mostly what you would expect from Hammett. Seven of the stories are about his character, the Continental Op, his qunitessential detective. The Continental Op is everything a hardboiled detective should be- but not quite the Hollywood version. The Op is balding and middle-aged, and avoids trouble, if he can.

It's remarkable that Hammett isn't a more noted stylist- his minimalism often makes Hemingway look wordy.

This collection also contains the only three Sam Spade stories, and a story that would change radically before becoming The Thin Man.

[Julie Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

#49 - 2010.

Yep. I couldn't just try Chandler without also sampling the other great master of hard-boiled mystery fiction, Dashiell Hammett. Again, my random library selections yielded a novel and this short story selection. It also has an interesting overview of Hammett's life in the introduction. These stories contain hard boiled detectives but also, surprisingly, twist ending stories from different points of view as well. Hammett is a more varied writer than Chandler and I am always amused whenever the main detective describes himself as short and stout (which seems to happen frequently). About halfway through and thoroughly enjoying this intro to Hammett.

[Tom Stamper · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mix of Continental Op stories with other unrelated crime fiction. I tend to like the Op stuff best, although the title story is really inventive and worth your while if you read no other story in the collection. It's so brutal and almost 100 years old. The end of the book is an early attempt at the Thin Man with a different plot. It's a shame Hammett got lazy with all of that Hollywood money because I wish he had spent the last 30 years of his life writing more of these stories. Hammett's novels are great, but like Hemingway he is as good if not better at the short story.

[Harold · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is exactly what it purports to be. A bunch of short crime fiction stories that taken individually deliver a satisfying read in minimal time. The Continental Op and Sam Spade are in for many of the stories and there is even one story that cam be taken as a western. Good stuff.