The Lost Detective

May 11, 2015
The early life of Dashiell Hammett—from his background with the Pinkerton Detective Agency to his bout with tuberculosis while serving in the Army during WWI—fills this entertaining and informative biography by Ward (Dark Harbor). Growing up in Baltimore, Samuel Dashiell Hammett dropped out of high school to help support his family, but found few jobs appealing to him. A vaguely worded newspaper ad—Pinkerton’s preferred method of recruiting then—led to his main pre-writing employment, as well as fertile material for his later stories and novels. While many have written about Hammett’s life before, Ward dives deep into primary sources, including the Pinkerton Archives and Hammett’s VA hospitalization record. But it’s his choice to also wade into Hammett’s stories (including more obscure works, like the unfinished “Tulip”), using their autobiographical elements to flesh out details of the detective life, that help set this work apart. Examples range from The Maltese Falcon’s Brigid O’Shaughnessy, inspired by an old girlfriend of Hammett’s, to the Continental Op’s boss, the Old Man, likely based on legendary Pinkerton agent James McParland. Ward ends somewhat abruptly with Hammett’s early days in Hollywood, but given the vast volumes already written about Hammett’s life on the blacklist and with Lillian Hellman, the limits to this book’s scope hardly detract from the fascinating tale it tells. Agent: Ed Breslin, Ed Breslin Agency.

May 15, 2015
Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961), private eye. Journalist and former American Heritage editor Ward (Dark Harbor: The War for the New York Waterfront, 2011, etc.) began this lively, but ultimately slight, book with a single question: how did Hammett transform himself "from Pinkerton operative to master of the American detective story"? The many biographies of Hammett (Ward cites a few in his bibliography) failed to answer his question, so he set out on his own investigation. Unfortunately, finding little evidence of Hammett's years working for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, Ward often guesses what Hammett might have felt, done, or thought. Although he speculates, for example, that "doing his scores of operative reports" honed Hammett's ability to write pithy narratives, none of those reports are in the Pinkerton archive at the Library of Congress. Ward can only deduce what they might have contained from other operatives' work. Other information about the Pinkerton years came from Hammett researcher and journalist David Fechheimer, who tracked down operatives who had known Hammett. Ward also closely reads Hammett's detective stories for clues. Since none of his early writing has survived, however, even Hammett's motivation to become a writer is shrouded in mystery. What is clear was his inability to continue to work for Pinkerton because he was weak, and often bedridden, from tuberculosis contracted during World War I. With a wife and children to support, Fechheimer suggests, "he would have done whatever he had to do to make a buck." "Down the years," writes Ward, "Hammett must have wondered what might have happened had he gone on chasing crooks for the agency; whether, once he had run out his string as an operative, he could have settled into a desk job bossing younger detectives." Or maybe not. Ward ends the biography in 1935, when Hammett was famous, celebrated, and usually drunk. A jaunty narrative for Hammett and hard-boiled fans only.

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June 15, 2015

Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) began writing short fiction in 1922, and in a maniacally fertile period between 1929 and 1934 penned five hard-boiled novels, The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man among them, that would become standards in American crime fiction. Inspired by Hammett's experiences over nearly a decade as a detective, the stories exposed the raw nerve of America's growing criminal enterprise and whetted the reading public's appetite for crime novels, introducing such iconic characters as the Continental Op, Sam Spade, and Nick Charles, and devising an unfamiliar crime lexicon that would be imitated (but never surpassed) in following decades. Biographer Ward (Dark Harbor) asserts, "If anything taught Hammett to write pithily and with appreciation for the language of street characters it was...his scores of operative reports for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency." However, Hammett's life was far from the romantic ideal of a best-selling author. Tubercular and alcoholic, Hammett--alongside his longtime partner, the dramatist Lillian Hellman--struggled to reignite the spark of creativity that characterized his early career. A sixth novel would never come to fruition. VERDICT Ward's focus on the origins of Hammett's writing style and his connecting the events of the author's background to the fiction are the highlights of this brief, accessible biography. Endnotes and a selected bibliography are useful for researchers and those wishing to dig deeper into the historical and cultural contexts underpinning Hammett's achievements. Highly recommended for readers of literary biography, mystery, and crime fiction.--Patrick A. Smith, Bainbridge State Coll., GA

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2015
Ward, author of Dark Harbor: The War for the New York Waterfront (2010), has written a brief, buoyant Dashiell Hammett biography that focuses on how Hammett's brief career as a Pinkerton operative infused his crime writing and, especially, his characters Sam Spade and Nick Charles. Ward pored over the reports and memos written by Pinkerton operatives and housed in the Pinkerton archives in the Library of Congress; interviewed Hammett experts, including his daughter, who was able to tell Ward which of Hammett's hands bore a knife scar; researched Pinkerton Agency cases; and read the entire Hammett oeuvre for clues as to early Pinkerton influences. Although, as Ward acknowledges, no reports written by Hammett are in the archives, Ward uses the terse, Damon Runyonsounding reports to make a convincing argument for how this style translated into Hammett's prose. Hammett worked for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency (whose motto, We Never Sleep, was the basis for private eye ) before and briefly after WWI, until tuberculosis forced him into writing. This shines a light on Hammett's life and writings in an entirely new way.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)