Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett was an American crime writer and former Pinkerton detective whose terse fiction helped establish the hard-boiled detective novel.
Pinkerton National Detective Agency: An American private detective agency founded in 1850 by Allan Pinkerton. Hammett worked for the agency, drawing on its investigative culture for his fiction.
The Maltese Falcon: A 1930 detective novel by Dashiell Hammett about private detective Sam Spade and a coveted statuette. Its shifting alliances and unsentimental detective made it Hammett’s best-known novel.
Lillian Hellman: An American playwright and screenwriter who was Dashiell Hammett’s longtime partner. Hellman shared Hammett’s personal and political life and later wrote about their relationship.
Raymond Chandler: An American crime novelist known for Philip Marlowe and a more figurative, openly reflective hard-boiled style. Chandler admired Hammett but made the detective’s voice more lyrical and morally introspective.
Hard-boiled detective: A fictional investigator marked by toughness, skepticism, and work in a violent, morally uncertain world. Hammett’s Continental Op and Sam Spade became influential models for this detective type.
Hardboiled fiction: A crime-fiction mode marked by unsentimental prose, violence, and morally compromised characters. Hammett helped define this broader mode through his terse prose and professional detectives.
The Thin Man: A 1934 novel by Dashiell Hammett featuring married amateur investigators Nick and Nora Charles. It shows Hammett adapting crime fiction into a witty mystery centered on an unconventional couple.
Allan Pinkerton: A Scottish-American detective who founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1850. The agency Pinkerton founded employed Hammett and shaped the professional world behind his fiction.
Agatha Christie: An English mystery writer known for intricate puzzles and detectives including Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Christie’s clue-centered mysteries contrast with Hammett’s emphasis on action, atmosphere, and corrupt institutions.
Crime fiction: Fiction in which crime, its investigation, or its consequences form a central part of the plot. Hammett reshaped this broad genre by making investigation a rough, fallible practice.