Dashiell Hammett Reading Order

12 books (1961–2012)

Start with Red Brain and Other Thrillers, the first of 12 books in the Anthologies series.

#	Title
1	Red Brain and Other Thrillers 1961Buy 🇺🇸
2	Breakdown and Other Thrillers 1968Buy 🇺🇸
3	Tales of Mystery 1986Buy 🇺🇸
4	City Sleuths and Tough Guys 1989Buy 🇺🇸
5	Great Tales of Crime and Detection 1992Buy 🇺🇸
6	Murder Plus 1992Buy 🇺🇸
7	Pulp Frictions: Hardboiled Stories 1996Buy 🇺🇸
8	The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century 2000Buy 🇺🇸
9	The Oxford Book of Detective Stories 2000Buy 🇺🇸
10	The Longman Anthology of Detective Fiction 2004Buy 🇺🇸
11	San Francisco Noir 2 2009Buy 🇺🇸
12	Books to Die For 2012Buy 🇺🇸

2 books (1930–2026)

Start with The Maltese Falcon and read in order.

#	Title
1	The Maltese Falcon 1930Buy 🇺🇸
2	Return of the Maltese Falcon(By: Max Allan Collins) 2026Buy 🇺🇸

2 books (2002–2007)

Start with Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett: 1921-1960 and read in order.

#	Title
1	Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett: 1921-1960 2002Buy 🇺🇸
2	The Crime Wave 2007Buy 🇺🇸

8 books (1922–1924)

Start with The Barber and His Wife, the first of 8 books in the Peter Collinson Short Stories/Novellas series.

17 books (1993–2012)

Start with For Better and for Worse, the first of 17 books in the Selected Shorts series.

#	Title
1	For Better and for Worse 1993Buy 🇺🇸
2	Even More Laughs 1998Buy 🇺🇸
3	Timeless Classics 2006Buy 🇺🇸
4	Edith Wharton 2007Buy 🇺🇸
5	Falling in Love 2007Buy 🇺🇸
6	Family Matters 2007Buy 🇺🇸
7	Food Fictions 2007Buy 🇺🇸
8	Pets! 2007Buy 🇺🇸
9	Tales of Betrayal 2007Buy 🇺🇸
10	Travel Tales 2007Buy 🇺🇸
11	Are We There Yet? 2008Buy 🇺🇸
12	A Touch of Magic 2009Buy 🇺🇸
13	The William Hurt Collection 2009Buy 🇺🇸
14	Whodunit? 2009Buy 🇺🇸
15	American Classics 2010Buy 🇺🇸
16	New American Stories 2011Buy 🇺🇸
17	Poe! 2012Buy 🇺🇸

9 books (1922–2013)

Start with The Barber and His Wife(As:Peter Collinson), the first of 9 books in the Short Stories/Novellas series.

#	Title
1	The Barber and His Wife(As:Peter Collinson) 1922Buy 🇺🇸
2	The Road Home(As:Peter Collinson) 1922Buy 🇺🇸
3	Arson Plus(As:Peter Collinson) 1923Buy 🇺🇸
4	Laughing Masks / When Luck's Running Good(As:Peter Collinson) 1923Buy 🇺🇸
5	Slippery Fingers(As:Peter Collinson) 1923Buy 🇺🇸
6	The Sardonic Star of Tom Doody(As:Peter Collinson) 1923Buy 🇺🇸
7	The Vicious Circle(As:Peter Collinson) 1923Buy 🇺🇸
8	Itchy / Itchy the Debonair(As:Peter Collinson) 1924Buy 🇺🇸
9	The Hunter 2013Buy 🇺🇸

15 books (1944–2025)

Start with A Man Called Spade, the first of 15 books in the Short Story Collections series.

#	Title
1	A Man Called Spade 1944Buy 🇺🇸
2	The Adventures of Sam Spade and Other Stories 1944Buy 🇺🇸
3	Hammett Homicides 1946Buy 🇺🇸
4	Dead Yellow Woman 1947Buy 🇺🇸
5	Creeping Siamese and Other Stories 1950Buy 🇺🇸
6	Nightmare Town and Other Stories 1950Buy 🇺🇸
7	The Big Knockover 1966Buy 🇺🇸
8	The Continental Op 1974Buy 🇺🇸
9	Dashiell Hammett: Crime Stories and Other Writings 2001Buy 🇺🇸
10	Dashiell Hammett: A Retrospective Anthology(With: Jack Adrian) 2004Buy 🇺🇸
11	Lost Stories(With: Joe Gores) 2005Buy 🇺🇸
12	Vintage Hammett 2005Buy 🇺🇸
13	Return of the Thin Man(With: Julie M. Rivett) 2012Buy 🇺🇸
14	The Hunter and Other Stories 2013Buy 🇺🇸
15	The Continental Op Casebook, Vol. 1 2025Buy 🇺🇸

6 books (1929–1944)

Start with Red Harvest, the first of 6 books in the Standalone Novels series.

#	Title
1	Red Harvest 1929Buy 🇺🇸
2	The Dain Curse 1929Buy 🇺🇸
3	The Glass Key 1931Buy 🇺🇸
4	Woman In The Dark 1933Buy 🇺🇸
5	The Thin Man 1934Buy 🇺🇸
6	They Can Only Hang You Once 1944Buy 🇺🇸