The Continental Op is the archetype of the hardboiled detective and Dashiell Hammett's most prolific character - appearing in around 30 stories . Hammett pretty much invented the genres but wound up being blacklisted for his membership in the Communist party. Some writers, such as Mickey Spillane, would write virtual pastiches of Hammett's fiction but with ironic anti-Communist massages. The writer Raymond Chandler was a big fan of Hammett and openly acknowledge his influence.
