The Big Knockover

His name remains one of the most important and recognisable in the crime fiction genre. Hammett set the standard for much of the work that would follow * INDEPENDENT *He is master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer * BOSTON GLOBE *The first fully “hard-boiled” hero in American letters * NEW YORKER *Hammett’s prose is clean and entirely unique. His characters are as sharp and economically defined as any in American literature * NEW YORK TIMES *He put these people down on paper as they are, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used – Raymond ChandlerDashiell Hammett’s crime thriller and its hard-boiled hero Sam Spade influenced everyone from Chandler to Le Carré * GUARDIAN *

Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was born in Maryland and worked in a number of menial jobs until he became an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. His experiences as a private detective laid the foundations for his writing career. His work includes RED HARVEST, THE MALTESE FALCON, THE GLASS KEY, THE THIN MAN and some eighty short stories, mostly published in Black Mask magazine.