Dashiell Hammett. Nightmare Town (1999) 396 pp.
Contents: Nightmare Town; House Dick; Ruffian’s Wife; The Man Who Killed Dan Odams; Night Shots; Zigzags of Treachery; The Assistant Murderer; His Brother’s Keeper; Two Sharp Knives; Death on Pine Street; The Second-Story Angel; Afraid of a Gun; Tom, Dick or Harry; One Hour; Who Killed Bob Teal?; A Man Called Spade; Too Many Have Lived; They Can Only Hang You Once; A Man Named Thin; *The First Thin Man.
Twenty long-unavailable short stories (seven Continental Op stories; three Sam Spade stories), several with San Francisco settings. Most notable in this collection is the first publication of ten chapters Hammett wrote in 1930—called here “The First Thin Man”—that bear clear similarities to The Thin Man, published three years later. However, this time the protagonist is San Francisco detective John Guild, investigating a murder in the village of Hell Bend, a short distance from San Francisco; the investigation brings him back to the city.

*1st book publication