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Dashiell Hammett, 1894-1961
Inspired to try his hand at writing mysteries after his years with the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Dashiell Hammett met a warm reception when he published his first two detective novels in 1929. But it was the appearance of "The Maltese Falcon" a year later that secured him his reputation as one of America's most original mystery writers. The hard-bitten realism and crisp dialogue of that work led critics to compare its author's style to that of Ernest Hemingway. Hammett's later books, "The Thin Man" and "The Glass Key," drew similar accolades. In defining the main difference between Hammett's works and the far more common drawing-room detective stories of the period, one admirer observed that Hammett had taken murder "out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley," where, after all, it more generally occurred in real life.
Edward Biberman, 1937 |