Blood Money

BloodMoney, first published in 1927 in Black Mask magazine as The Big Knockover and $106,000 Blood Money is a classic Continental Op detective thriller by master-of-the-genre (and one if its creators) Dashiell Hammett. The story is one of Hammett's first novel-length books, and is written in his trademark sparse, realistic style. Blood Money opens with a massive robbery of two adjacent San Francisco banks, involving dozens of colorful gangsters, followed by the king-pin's deadly dispatch of many of the same participants in the robbery. Later, the detective attempts to locate and bring-to-justice the plot mastermind and recover the large reward. Unexpected twists along the way keep the reader turning pages to the exciting conclusion.