Continental Op

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 violence in the American grain.

Continental Op arrives in an Old Western-era mining town where rival fictions fight for control. When the man who hired Op is murdered, Op decides to stay and clean up the town. Chapter One - A Woman in Green and a Man in Gray Chapter Two - The Czar of Posionville Chapter Three - Dinah Brand Chapter Four - Hurricane Street Chapter Five - Old Elihu Talks Sense Chapter Six - Whisper's Joint Chapter Seven - That's Why I Sewed You Up Chapter Eight - A Tip on Kid Cooper Chapter Nine - A Black Knife Chapter Ten - Crime Wanted- Male or Female Chapter Eleven - The Swell Spoon Chapter Twelve - A New Deal Chapter Thirteen - Two Hundred Dollars and Ten Cents Chapter Fourteen - Max Chapter Fifteen - Cedar Hill Inn Chapter Sixteen - Exit Jerry Chapter Seventeen - Reno Chapter Eighteen - Painter Street Chapter Nineteen - The Peace Conference Chapter Twenty - Laudanum Chapter Twenty-One - The Seventeenth Murder Chapter Twenty-Two - The Ice Pick Chapter Twenty-Three - Mr. Charles Proctor Dawn Chapter Twenty-Four - Wanted Chapter Twenty-Five - Whiskey Town Chapter Twenty-Six - Blackmail Chapter Twenty-Seven - Warehouses

In Prohibition California, the Continental Op is a detective who unravels an intergenerational curse that has led to a string of murders linked to occult activity surrounding Gabrielle Leggett. Is Gabrielle a victim of her family's legacy, or a willing participant? Title Info. Part One: The Dains. Chapter 1. Eight Diamonds Chapter 2. Long-nose Chapter 3. Something Black Chapter 4. The Vague Harpers Chapter 5. Gabrielle Chapter 6. The Man from Devil's Island Chapter 7. The Curse Chapter 8. But and If Part Two: The Temple. Chapter 9. Tad's Blind Man Chapter 10. Dead Flowers Chapter 11. God Chapter 12. The Unholy Grail Part Three: Quesada. Chapter 13. The Cliff Road Chapter 14. The Crumpled Chrysler Chapter 15. I've Killed Him Chapter 16. The Night Hunt Chapter 17. Below Dull Point Chapter 18. The Pineapple Chapter 19. The Degenerate Chapter 20. The House in the Cove Chapter 21. Aaronia Haldorn Chapter 22. Confessional Chapter 23. The Circus

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 her weirder and infinitely more dangerous? The Dain Curse is one of the Continental Op's most bizarre cases and a tautly crafted masterpiece of suspense.

Red Harvest is the first full novel by Dashiell Hammett, the author universally regarded as the father of "hard boiled" detective fiction. An enormous hit upon its publication, it has since become a classic of the detective genre. Time Magazine included Red Harvest in its 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005. Narrated by Hammett's enigmatic detective known only as the "Continental Op," Red Harvest finds the Op being summoned to the mining town of Personville (called "Poisonville" by the locals) by a newspaper publisher looking to rid the town of a pair of violent gangs originally hired to enforce a labor settlement. When the publisher is murdered before the Op can even arrive on the scene, he finds himself wrapped up in a murder investigation, a love affair, a gang war...and then becomes a murder suspect himself. Filled with twists and turns, violence, betrayal, greed and corruption, Red Harvest was originally serialized in Black Mask magazine before being published as Hammett's first novel in 1929. It has since been hailed as one of the finest pieces of detective fiction ever written and the style, plot and characters have inspired dozens of films and television shows in the ensuing decades. Red Harvest is presented here in its original and unabridged format and is narrated by renowned audiobook performers Ben Werling, Kevin Theis and Sara Nichols.