Mystery and suspense readers are in for a rare treat with The Black Mask Murders, a unique achievement in the art of sophisticated action entertainment. It is the first in a series featuring the three seminal authors of the American private eye novel - Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner - each, in turn, as himself, the detective-hero. In the first of this delightfully offbeat mystery series, "Dash" Hammett is the narrator, with the other two in subsidiary roles; their turns will come in subsequent books. The reader encounters high-stakes crime and corruption in a dazzling murder case in the chic glitter-world of Hollywood during its golden age. Colorful sequences extend from New York to San Francisco's Chinatown to Southern California's Big Bear Lake country. Authentically recreated, the legendary masters of suspense fiction live again as they follow a complex, danger-filled blood trail in pursuit of a fabled jeweled treasure - the real-life inspiration for Hammett's classic novel, The Maltese Falcon. Gritty and glamorous, fascinating and fast-paced, bold and brilliantly conceived, here is a compulsive read for those who seek the unusual in the best of mystery and suspense. There's never been a novel quite like The Black Mask Murders.