The Continental Op was a private investigator employed as an operative of the Continental Detective Agency's San Francisco office. His stories were all told in the first person and his name was never given.

The Continental Op is a master of deceit in the exercise of his occupation. In his 1927 Black Mask story "$106,000 Blood Money" the Op is confronted with a dilemma: should he expose a corrupt fellow detective, thereby hurting the reputation of his agency; and should he also allow an informant to collect the $106,000 reward in a big case even though he is morally certain—but cannot prove—that the informant has murdered one of his agency's clients? The Op resolves his two problems neatly by manipulating events so that the corrupt detective and the informant get into an armed confrontation in which both are killed.

Decades of witnessing human cruelty, misery, and ruin, as well as being instrumental in sending hundreds of people to jail, or to the gallows, have greatly weakened the Op's natural sympathy with his fellow men. He fears becoming like his boss, "The Old Man", whom he describes as "a shell, without any human feelings whatsoever".

*“Arson Plus” (October 1, 1923, Black Mask; as Peter Collinson)
*“Slippery Fingers” (October 15, 1923, Black Mask; as Peter Collinson)
*“Crooked Souls” (October 15, 1923, Black Mask; aka “The Gatewood Caper”)
*“It” (November 1, 1923, Black Mask; aka “The Black Hat That Wasn’t There”)”
*The House Dick” (December 1, 1923, Black Mask; aka “Bodies Piled Up”)
*“The Tenth Clew” (January 1, 1924, Black Mask)
*“Night Shots” (February 1, 1924, Black Mask)
*“Zigzags of Treachery” (March 1, 1924, Black Mask)
*“One Hour” (April 1, 1924, Black Mask)
*“The House on Turk Street” (April 15, 1924, Black Mask)
*“The Girl With Silver Eyes” (June 1924, Black Mask)
*“Women, Politics and Murder” (September 1924, Black Mask; aka “Death on Pine Street”)
*“The Golden Horseshoe” (November 1924, Black Mask)
*“Who Killed Bob Teal?” (November 1924, True Detective)
*“Mike or Alec or Rufus” (January 1925, Black Mask; aka “Tom, Dick or Harry”)
*“The Whosis Kid” (March 1925, Black Mask)
*“The Scorched Face” (May 1925, Black Mask)
*“Corkscrew” (September 1925, Black Mask)
*“Dead Yellow Women” (November 1925, Black Mask)
*“The Gutting of Couffignal” (December 1925, Black Mask)
*“Creeping Siamese” (March 1926, Black Mask)
*“The Big Knockover” (February 1927, Black Mask)
*“$106,000 Blood Money” (May 1927, Black Mask)
*“The Main Death” (June 1927, Black Mask)
*“The Cleansing of Poisonville” (November 1927, Black Mask)
*“Crime Wanted–Male or Female” (December 1927, Black Mask)
*“This King Business” (January 1928, Mystery Stories)
*“Dynamite” (January 1928, Black Mask)
*Part three of Red Harvest
*“The 19th Murder” (February 1928, Black Mask)
*“Black Lives” (November 1928, Black Mask)
*“The Hollow Temple” (December 1928, Black Mask)
*"Black Honeymoon" (February 1929, Black Mask)
*"Fly Paper" (August 1929, Black Mask)
*The Farewell Murder (February 1930, Black Mask)
*Death and Company (November 1930, Black Mask)

*The Op is one of the first major hardboiled detectives later developed in such characters as Hammett's own Sam Spade, Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, Mickey Spillane's Mike Lancer, Mike Danger and Mike Hammer, Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer and others.

*[https://thrillingdetective.com/2018/08/16/the-continental-op/ Thrilling Detective]
*[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Continental_Op Wikipedia]

Category:Literary Characters
Category:Detective Characters
Category:Protagonists
Category:1923 Debuts
Category:Real Name Unknown
Category:Male Characters
Category:Pulp Characters
Category:Non-Powered Characters
Category:Dashiell Hammett - Creator
Category:Pro-Distributors Publishing Characters