Dashiell Hammett - A Life

Some writers create hard-boiled detectives. Dashiell Hammett practically invented them. Before Sam Spade prowled the streets and before generations of crime writers filled the world with cynical private investigators nursing grudges and questionable habits, Hammett had already shown them how it was done.

In Dashiell Hammett: A Life, Diane Johnson takes on the formidable task of chronicling the life of one of America’s most influential crime writers. Published in 1987, this engrossing biography explores the man behind The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man and Red Harvest, revealing a life that was often every bit as intriguing as the novels he produced.

Hammett’s biography possesses all the ingredients of a compelling thriller. He worked as a detective for the Pinkerton Agency, battled illness, became a literary sensation, engaged in turbulent relationships, attracted political controversy and eventually evolved into a figure whose life seemed almost too colourful to belong to a real person.

There is a wonderful irony in the story. Hammett spent much of his career creating fictional investigators whose purpose was to uncover the truth. Meanwhile, biographers have spent decades attempting to uncover the truth about Hammett himself. The hunter eventually became the mystery.

Johnson explores the contradictions that made him such a fascinating figure. He could be charismatic and distant, successful and self-destructive, intensely productive and frustratingly inactive. His literary output was relatively small compared with many famous authors, yet its influence proved enormous. Entire generations of crime writers have spent decades wandering through territory that Hammett helped establish.

The biography also serves as a vivid portrait of twentieth-century America. Through Hammett’s life, readers encounter the worlds of detective agencies, publishing, Hollywood, political activism and literary celebrity. It is a journey through some of the most turbulent and interesting decades of modern history.

Fans of crime fiction will particularly enjoy the connections between Hammett’s experiences and his novels. His years as a detective provided the raw material for stories that transformed the genre. The result was crime fiction stripped of many Victorian conventions and replaced with something grittier, sharper and considerably more dangerous.

There is also something delightfully appropriate about the fact that a writer famous for lean, economical prose should inspire a biography full of rich detail and careful investigation. One imagines Hammett himself viewing the process with a mixture of amusement and suspicion.

Modern readers may be surprised by how influential Hammett remains. His shadow stretches across literature, cinema and television. Every hard-bitten detective with a cynical outlook and a complicated moral code owes him at least a small debt of gratitude.

This 1987 Ballantine Books edition remains in good condition and comes from the shelves of Crappy Old Books. It has weathered the years well and remains an attractive and highly readable copy of a fascinating literary biography.

An excellent acquisition for crime-fiction enthusiasts, literary historians, collectors of biographies or anyone curious about the life of the man who helped redefine detective fiction. A fitting tribute to a writer whose own life occasionally seemed as mysterious, complicated and compelling as the stories he told.

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