With the twins of prophecy split, Nicholas Flamel near death, and John Dee in possession of the swords of power, Danu Talis has yet to fall and the future of the human race lies in the balance.

"Dashiell Hammett changed the face of crime fiction. In five novels published over five years as well as a string of stories, he transformed the mystery genre into literature and left us with the figure of the hard-boiled detective, from the Continental Op to Sam Spade--immortalized on film by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon--and the more glamorous Thin Man, also made iconic with the aid of Hollywood. A brilliant writer, Hammett was a complex...