Samuel Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) is one of the most popular American writers, a classic of the detective genre, the creator of a literary movement later called the “hard-boiled detective.” The works of this author are characterized by a dynamic development of the plot, which keeps the reader in constant suspense, not allowing him to be distracted from the book even for a minute. The first volume of the Works included a collection of stories united by one lone hero, a tireless crime fighter - “an opera from the Continental” . He is also the main character in the brilliant duology about gangsters “The Big Raid” and “106 Thousand for the Head.”