WOMAN IN THE DARK (1988) Dashiell Hammett - and similar items

WOMAN IN THE DARK by Dashiell Hammett Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN # 0-394-57269-6, First Edition, Copyright 1988 5.75" x 8.25", 75+ page hardcover with dustjacket. Written for Liberty magazine near the end of Hammett's prime (1933), reprinted in the 1950's in pulp paperback, this bullet-hard novella about an ex-con and a courtesan on the run now wins its first hard-cover publication. All of Hammett's themes are cast in miniature here?the lone-wolf hero; unsentimental sex and tense love; awareness of class lines (the villains are aristocrats; the heroes, for the most part, men and women with dirt under their nails and gutter-twang to their voices). As usual with Hammett, there's nary a wasted word, and if the ending's a bit happy-contrived ("fortuitous," as Robert B. Parker puts it in his intelligent foreword), the overall tone remains bitter but right, literary iodine. The book is complete and in EXCELLENT condition with some overall light wear. The bottom edge of the front cover board has a very small nick in it.