“Dashiell Hammett: Detective, Writer”. Crimetime (2000)

The JVf,! rnp,,! pi C4-if"M- 'Fic.tip1'\. Issut.?1. JuuL.OOO ｾＵｦｴＬｩ･＠ ｦｴＬｾＺ＠ ｾ＠ t{etective, writer ｖｅｒｙｏｎ READING this will almost certainly have heard of Dashiell Hammett, that most riginal writer of detective fiction who drew on his experience as an operative for the Pinkerton detective agency when he started writing crime stories. Look at the blurbs on the crime novels at your local bookshop­Hammett's name will appear again and again, the benchmark against which so many writers of 'tough' or hard­boiled fiction are still measured, the magical name which is used to invoke the highest achievement­so many writers are bailed as ' the new Hammett' or are promoted by blurb­writers to take a place 'alongside Hammett and Chandlet' It is remarkable that a man with SO short a writing career as Hammett could transform detective fiction and, at the same time, cut so deep a benchmark as to set the standard by which others will be measured and judged for the next seventy­five years, but that is precisely what Hammett achieved. Hammett's career as a writer was short Cover- from 1M rill"" IoVlHy Folio $ocifJty M-"- F*on. one. He started by selling short fiIIerpieces of dry wit, then longer pieces and then short stories during 1922, becoming established as a contributor to the legendary pulp magazine The BUu:k Mlsk in 1923. Knopf published his first novel, &d Harvest, in 1929 after serialization that year in Black Mask. In 1933, Hammett's fifth and final novel, The Thin Man was published in the magazine &dbook before book publication by Knopf the following year and, with that, Hammett's writing career was effectively over. So who was Dashiell Hammett, detective, drinker, invalid, ｷｲｩｴ･ｾ＠ and radical? Dashiell Hammett was I:iom Samuel Dashiell Hammett in St Mary's County, Maryland, May 27th, 1894, the second of three children born to Richard and Mary Hammett. The Hammett family had been comfortable, but Richard Hammett, a drinker and womanizer, was unable to maintain the prosperity of previous genera tions. He was also involved in local politics but, after Switching his political allegiance, became so unpopular that the family had to leave St Mary's County. The Hammetts moved to Philadelphia in 1900, and then to Baltimore the following year. During this period the young Samuel Hammett enjoyed a reasonably unremarkable childhood, although he was an avaricious reader. Richard Hammett became too ill to work in 1908 and, so the story goes, Samuel had to leave college to take a job as a messenger in order to help the family finances, but Samuel Hammett was glad of the chance to give up school. Young Hammett had trouble fU. keeping jobs however, because of his poor timekeeping. The reading habit that kept Hammett up half the night caused him to be frequently fired for lateness. In 1915 Sam Hammett answered a newspaper advertisement which led to him being taking on as an 'operative' or a detective at the Baltimore office of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Here his varied employment history was seen as something of an advantage and his Pinkerton role provided him with the variety his previous, mundane jobs had lacked . The Baltimore branch of the Pinkerton agency was headed by Jimmy Wright, who trained Hammett in the art of 'shadowing' or following suspects. Hammett would later use the short, stocky Wright as the physical model for his plump, middle-aged, nameless detective character, the Continental Op. Hammett extended his homage to the Baltimore branch of the Pinkerton Agency by naming his fictional detective firm The Continental Detective Agency: in Hammett's day the Pinkerton office in Baltimore was located in the Continental building. In June 1918 Hammett enlisted in the ambulance corps, and was posted to a camp some twenty miles outside Baltimore. Within a few months Hammett became one of the many victims of the world-wide epidemic of Spanish flu which was spread around the world by various armies leaving the European theatre at the end of the First World War. By May 1919 Hammett's condition had developed into tuberculosis and, in July, he was discharged from the army as an invalid. Hammett returned to Baltimore for a further stint of detective work. How･ｶｾ＠ his poor health caused him to be hospitalised again and, in December 1919, Hammett was declared 50% disabled. Meanwhile, the decade about to open is one of optimism and prosperity: after the war in Europe, a lighter mood is encouraged by the boom in advertising (in which Hammett will soon playa part as a copywriter), and promises of happiness and freedom flicker against a backdrop, in America at least, of scandal and cOITUption, as the Volstead Act becomes law and 'the noble experiment', the prohibition of the production and sale of alcohol, allows for corruption and organised crime to take a firm hold on America. Overnight, the huge profits to be made from supplying bootleg liquor means that everybody from the bellboy to the mayor is on the take. illega! drinking joints-speakeasies-<>perate in every town. The cultural soundtrack is jazz and the mood is decidedly upbeat as women bob their hair and hemlines and the dancefloors resonate with racy dances like the Black Bottom and the Charleston. This is also the decade of the motor car: th.e great American symbol of freedom, opportunity and mobility (as well as the getaway) sweeps across the country almost overnightseven million cars are on the road in America in 1920, by 1929 the number will be 23 million. Following his release from hospital, Sam Hammett moves across the country to Washington, in the colder northwest. Here, in May 1920, he joins the Spokane branch of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. In the same year, two entrepreneurs, H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan found a pulp magazine, The BUu:k Mask, in the hope that sales of this title will support their ailing slick magazine, The Smart Set. The strap line of The BlJIck Mask's first issue, dated April 1920, declares it """ illustrated Magazine of Detective, Mystery, Adventure, Romance and Spiritualism'. It will be a few years yet, ｨｯｷ･ｶｾ＠ before the newstyle, tough, detective-hero, emerges from the cradle of its pages. By November 1920 Hammett's health has failed again, causing him to be admitted to a lungers' hospital near Thcoma, Washington. During periods of respite from this bout of lllness, Hammett courts and seduces Jose Dolan, one of the hospital nurses, whom he will later marry. In February 1921 Hammett and several other patients are moved south to a hospital near San Diego, California, in order to benefit from the milder climate. At the same time, Jose Dolan, who had been transferred to a hospital in Montana, finds she is pregnant and is discharged from her nursing job. Meanwhile, Warren Harding takes office as 29th US President: by 1923, ｨｯｷ･ｶｾ＠ Harding will face prosecution for his COITUpt or; at best, inept presidency, which includes selling his cronies the Teapot Dome military base, containing vast oil fields. While cOITUption appears to run to the very core of American society, Harding avoids impeachment by dying in mysterious circumstances, pOSSibly poisoned by his wife for his infidelity. In May 1921 Hammett is considered well enough to be discharged from hospital and, in June, he moves to San Francisco where, in July, he marries Jose; they move into an apartment at 620 Eddy Street and Hammett works off­and­on as a part­time Pink in San Francisco. Pinkerton's San Francisco Branch was run by Phil Geaque, Hammett's model for The Old Man, the head of the fictional Continental Detective Agency. In October 1921 jose produces a daughter. Mary jane, and Hammett has to sleep in the hall of the apartment to minimise the risk of infecting the baby with TB. His poor health also causes him to give up Pinkerton work and, by December 1921, Hammett quits the Pinkerton Detective Agency for good. Hammett would later claim to have been involved with the Fatty Arbuckle case, and also to have discovered a cache of stolen gold on a ship just before it was due to sail: some critics and biographers are uncritically accepting of Hammett's claims, but Richard Layman is more skeptical, suggesting Hammett, as a successful author. was knowingly exploiting his past. Nter taking a writing course in 1922, Hammett began to write and sell advertising copy on a freelance basis. He also tried his hand at other forms of writing and, by October 1922, has sold a short, droll anecdote, 'The Parthian Shot', to Menoken and Nathan's The Smart Set. In December 1922 Hammett published his first piece in The Black Mask, under the pseudonym Peter Collinson, a name he had used for several earlier short pieces. 'The Road Home' is the tale of detective doggedly pursuing his human quarry into the jungle. Although he is wracked by thoughts of home the detective presses on with the pursuit when anyone (0+ else would have given up. This trait will be a feature in Hammett's later Continental Op stories. Another of Hammett's early Smart Set pieces stood out from the short sardonic sketches. This was 'From the Memoirs of a Private Detective', which appeared in The Smart Set in March 1923. The piece consisted of 29 short paragraphs in which Hammett recalled incidents or made wry comments about various aspects of detective work, such as 'Three times I have been mistaken for a prohibition agent, but never had any trouble clearing myself ' and 'That the lawbreaker is inVariably ... apprehended is probably the least challenged of extant myths ... [T]he files of every detective bureau bulge with the records of unsolved mysteries and uncaught criminals.' Writing and drinking through the night, ex-detective Hammett managed to publish fourteen stories in six magazines in 1923, half of them in The Black Mask. After 'The Vicious Circle', a recursive blackmail story published as Collinson in june 1923, Hammett's next appearance in The Black Mask, also as Collinson, is in October 1923 with ,.,.son Plus', the first Continental Op story. This debut tale of a character that will prove to be popular with The Black Mask's readers tells the story of a complex insurance fraud and a fabricated death, whi!=h the Op uncovers through observation and perseverance. The Op is an interesting character in the history of detective fiction : he does not have a name, he is referred to simply as 'the Op'. Although the stories are told in the first person, the Op reveals few personal details. As well as u;._ ti_,..t. ately draws the reader into the milieu of the 1929 story, 'Fly Paper'. BlackMask editor Joe 'Cap' Shaw was so taken with Hammett's style that he would encallIage other write,rs to emulate it, hence it was said Shaw strove to 'Hammetize' Black Mask. The settings of The Op stories, generally but not always San Francisco, were portrayed with an accuracy that would allow a reader familiar with the city to follow the characters around, or a reader unfamiliar with the city to develop a sense of its geography and atmosphere. The effect of the accuracy of setting, the attention to detail in detective work, the language used, the characters'motivations, and the backdrop of social and moral corruption was such that Hammeit's Continental Op stories became a cornerstone in the genre; Hammettdeveloped a style and, in so doing, set a standard by which 'tough' or realist crime writing is still judged. Hammett continued to write stories for TIrL Black Mask through to the mid192Os, and for other publications, including Brief Stories, Sunset Magazine and Argosy All Story Weekly, using various pseudonyms-Peter Collinson, Daghull Hammett, even Mary Jane Hammett-as well as Dashiell Hammett, the name he settled on by 1924. Of the twenty-eight Hammett stories published in The Black Mask between 1922 and 1926, twenty were Op stories (one Op story, 'Who Killed Bob Tealr, appeared in True Detective Stories in November 1924). When Jose delivered a second daughteJ; Hammett asked Tile Black Mask editor Phil Cody for a rise. Cody couldn't increase Ham- melt's rate, even though Hammett's Op stories (along with Carrol John Daly's Race Williams yarns) were among the most popular in the magazine. This caused Hammett to give up 'blackmasking', as he called it, to take a job as an advertising copywriter for San Francisco jeweller Albert Samuels. While with Samuels Hammett wrote advertising copy and articles abou t advertising, and conducted an office affair; however, ill health caused Hammett to give up his job with Samuels after six months. Hammett also moved out of the family home. The explanation usually offered by biographers is that TB caused him to live apart from Jose and the girls: whether or not that was the case-perhaps his drinking or philandering, or the fact that Hammett was not the father of Jose's firstdaughte.; precipitated the separation; whatever the cause, the marriage soon broke down. When Hammett stopped writing Op stories sales of TIrL Black Mask noticeably dipped, with the result that editor Phil Cody was replaced by Joe Shaw in 1926. Shaw read back issues of the magazine and was particularly struck by Hammeit's work. Realising there were no more Hammett stories on file, Shaw contacted Hammett and persuaded him back to the fold by asking for longer stories. As Hammett was paid by the word, this had the effect of increasing his earnings from 'blackmasking'; with this and his disability allowance, he was able to support himself and Jose and the girls. Although Shaw was the third Black Mask editor to publish Hammeit's stories (the first was George Sutton, who preceded ,tiN. ｴｩｎＭｾＮ＠ Cody) Shaw is usually credited with developing a particular style in the magazine inasmuch as he encouraged other writers to think about their prose, to strive for the economy of style which characterized Hammett's writing. While the tight writing and liberal use of underworld argot gave Black Mask its distinctive quality; the clipped, aggressive style and vernacular expression was not unique to BUlek Mask but should be seen, along with Hemingway's writing, as part of a developing trend in American realism in the 192Os. After shortening the magazine's ti tle to BUlck Mask in 1926, Shaw published twenty-four Hammett stories between 1927-1930, including four novel serialisations; thus, under Shaw's editorship, Hammett produced all his major works. Hammett's first story for Shaw was 'The Big Knockover'; the first installment of a two-part saga that pitches the Op and the Continental Detective Agency against organised crime. Th.e story bristles with underworld slang and evocative nicknames, such as Paddy the Mex and The Dis and Oat Kid. The opening line is typically blunt and atmospheric: 'I found Paddy the Mex in Jean Larrouy's dive.' 'The Big Knockover' teUs of the gathering of at least a hundred and fifty crooks, drawn from all over country, in order to simultaneously rob two San Francisco banks. The scenario provides more shootings and a higher body-count than a clutch of 1ltrantino movies, and The Op displays his own capacity for violence as he follows the gang's trail. At the end of the story the criminal mastermind escapes, and the Op resumes pursuit in the se- quel, '$106,000 Blood Money'. In the second episode, corruption is seen to extend as far as the Continental Detective Agency, and to a fellow operative. The Op employs natural justice to achieve his desined ends, which is to apprehend his quarry and protect the reputation of the Agency. Encouraged by Shaw, Hammett worked up to even longer stories. He undertook his most ambitious writing project to date, four linked stories, which ran in Black Mask from November 1927 to February 1928. This would be Hammett's first full-length novel, originally entitled Poisonville, but finally published by Knopf in 1929 under the title Red Harvest. Engaged by the editor of the town's ｮ･ｷｳｰ｡ｾ＠ the Op travels to i'ersonviJJe, which the locals refer to as Poisonville, a more accurate name for a small town riven with cor· ruption. On his arrival the Op finds the reforming newspaper editor has been murdered. The Op persuades the murdered man's father, Elihu W.ussonwho owns the mine and the newspaper and once ran the town-to allow him to carry on with the case. Willsson brought in gangsters to help him beat the union during a miner's strike. However, the gangsters and their thugs refused to leave, and Willsson lost control of the town. The mercenary Dinah Brand, who appears to be about to burst out her clothing, is one of Hammett's more memorable female characters. She provides the Op with female company as she shares gin, laudanum and repartee with him until her untimely exit. The Op infiltrates the gangs and, typically, plays both ends against the middle, bringing the book f07 to a violent conclusion. The body­count is typically high (hence the title, 'red harvest') and the Op finds the violence getting to him as he declares'getting a rear out of planning deaths is not natural It's what this place has done to me ... If I don't get away soon I'll be going blood-Simple like the natives: Get away he does, but cynically remarks that the town is all set to go to the dogs again. Some find in Red Harvest a marxist critique of capitalism. Others find in it a realistic tale of violence and corruption, with plenty of action. It caught the attention of the critics and Andre Gide recorded in his journal that this was 'far superior' to Hammett's other novels, although Peter Wolfe has it about right with his observation that, exciting as the story is, there is too much action for the plot to sustain. In 1928 Hammett wrote another series of linked stories which Knopf would also publish as a novel. The stories ran in Black Mask from November 1928 to February 1929, before appearing as a novel later that year. Hammett later referred to The Dain Curse as 'a silly story'. It tells the story of a woman with a troubled background, Gabrielle Leggett, who gets caught up with a San Francisco cult. Gabrielle apparently carries the Dain family curse, which gives the novel its title. As well as investigating the cult, the Op investigates Oanielle's past. There are, howeveJ; rather too many peripheral characters, too many mysterious elements and too many shifts in location for a coherent plot, with the result that the book is gooty-gothic. There are interesting elements, however, as Hammett lOT includes some ironic touches: the Op is pitted against a writer, suggesting Hammett knOwingly incorporated two aspects of himself in the plot, the detective getting the better of the writer (Physically, the tall, white-haired writer resembles Hammett); a character named Collinson also puts in an appearance. This would the last fulllength tale to feature the Op. By 1930 Black Mask's circulation had risen to over 100,000 per issue, but the end of the pulp era is already in Sight: writers were beginning to move to more lucrative Hollywood and radio markets and, by 1935 in the depths of the depresSion, sales would slump to 60,000. Hammett had yet to reach his peak however. This would come after his next series of linked stories, The Maltese Falcon. Here Hammett introduced a new detective, quite different from the Op: he worked not for an agency, but with a single ｰ｡ｲｴｮ･ｾ＠ He was talleJ; younger and slimmer than the Op, and he had a name: Sam Spade. The subjective first-person narrative of the Op stories is abandoned too as Hammett adopts an objective, third-person, narration for his latest yam. The Maltese Falron ran in Black Mask over five issues, from September 1929 to January 1930. Although his marriage was effectively over-Hammett moved to New York with Nell Martin in the autumn of 1929--the book would carry a dedication: To Jose. In The Maltese Falcon Hammett combines suspense with characterisation and a well-paced plot to produce his most successful novel, which will be acclaimed a classic-'the best detective story America has ever produced', according to critic Alexander Woollcottand will feature at or near the top of any list of 'best detective novels'. Set in San FranciscO, the action begins when a woman engages Spade to find her missing sister; later a Middle Eastern character shows up in Spade's office with a gun, and soon after Spade's partner, Miles ａｲ｣ｨ･ｾ＠ is shot dead from close range. Spade is suspected of carrying out a second fatal shooting to avenge Archer's death. The woman, Bridgid O'Shaugnessy, and the Levantine, Joel Cairo, are searching for a bejewelled statuette of a bird, as is Caspar Gutman. Spade agrees to help recover the falcon. Spade is ambiguous enough to be a convincing anti-hero, representing, as he tells Gutman, not only his clients' interests, but also his own. While the quest for the fabulous object turns up a wild goose rather than a black bird, by the end of the tale Spade's clients and their associates are dead or in jail: perhaps Hammett is suggesting that the search for honesty or integrity in a private eye is also something of a wild goose chase. The action takes place over a fiveday period, and the chronology is carefully worked out. A manageable range of characters moves the plot along through a series of crisp, lively dialogues. Subtle clues pointing to the identity of Archer's killer-powder bums on a dead man's coat, the dates on rent receipts--are deftly placed, and the denouement between Spade and Bridgid O'Shaugnessy brings the tale to a powerful climax. While there are clear differences between the Op and Sam Spade, there ,ri_ti_,.,t. are some similarities too, Spade echoes the Op's words to Princess Zhukovski as he remarks to Bridgid O'Shaugnessy 'I'm a detective and expecting me to run criminals down and then let them go free is like asking a dog to catch a rabbit and let it go.' Both Spade and the Op go beyond acceptable legal or moral limits in order to get the job done. It was in New York that Hammett finished his fourth novel, Tile Glass Key. The work was serialized in four parts in Black Mask between March and june, 1930, before book publication the following year. More experimental in form than The Maltese Falcon, this work split the critics. Some found the style of this elusively-titled novel too offputting, its coldly objective third-person narration preventing identification with any of the characters. james M. Cain remarked in an interview that he found it unreadable, commenting, 'forget this goddamn book' while Robert Edenbaum declared it 'Hammett's least satisfactory novel'. Others, such as Will Cuppy writing in the NI!W York Herald Tribune in April 1931, thought it 'about twice as good as his Maltese Falcon', and later critics also argue that The Glass Key is Hammett's meisterwerk: julian Symonds, for example, called it 'the peak of Hammett's achievement'. The Ghlss Key is a story of political corruption. Politicians and gangsters happily co-exist. Ned Beaumont, a ｧ｡ｭ｢ｬ･ｾ＠ sets ou t to clear his friend and his boss, local politico Paul Madvig, when he is suspected of the murder of Senator Ralph Henry's son. Complications arise because both Beaumont and Madvig are in love with Janet Henry, 101 script. This though was enough for MGM, and Hammett's contract was renewed for another tlu­ee years, although he would miss meetings and deadlines tlu-ough drunkenness. After Hammett's turn to urbane whimsy with Nick and Nora Charles, six Hollywood films were made from his stories between 1934 and 1936, which prOvided a good income. Hammett spent money easily, however, living in expensive hotels and he rented Harold Lloyd's 44-room mansion; he tlu-ew lavish parties, hired limousines and servants, and, according to biographer Joan Mellen, kept himself entertained with prostitutes. Hammett was drinking to legendary excess during this period, and all the biographies recount an incident in 1937 or 1938 when, after an extended binge, friends (the Hacketts or the Brackets, depending upon the biography) paid Hammett's hotel bill and put him on a plane bound for New York, c/o Lillian Hellman, in order to dry out. Hammett's last original work of fiction to be published in his lifetime was the Secret Agent X-9 comic strip, syndicated in Hearst's newspapers from 1934 as a rival to the popular Dick Tracy strip. Hammett was engaged by Hearst to write the comic strip because of his reputation as a writet Alex Raymond, creator of Flash Gordon, provided the illustrations for Hammett's prose . Hammett only wrote three adventures for the strip before his contract was revoked. The strip continued long after Hammett left however, employing a succession of writers. Although Hammett's writing career was effectively over-he had repeat- ,,,_#_,-' edly failed to deliver a new novel to Knopf and the publisher ended Hammett's contract-he had an income from Hollywood as a screen-writer and from films based on his earlier work. He would also earn money throughout the 19405 from radio series based on his characters, and from radio adaptations of his novels. Hammett becomes bored wi th Nick and Nora Charles, describing them as 'insufferably smug', and he began to miss meetings and deadlines. He got involved with the Screen Writers' Guild, a group concerned with the rights of screen-writers. American paranOia-politics at this time is such that involvement in groups concerned with workers' rights can lead to blacklisting as 'a communist' or trouble-maker. Hammett's contract with MGM is terminated. Hammett moves to NY where he signs petitions and lends his name to anti-fascist causes, and speaks against fascism at a communist-sponsored rally in NY. He also writes the screenplay for Walch on Ihe Rhine, based on Lillian Hellman's play. The FBI suspect Hammett is a communist organiser and begins to monitor him. However, after America enters the war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, Hammett reenJists-<lespite his advanced years (he is 48)-and the FBI lose track of him for two years. As a soldier in the Army Signal Corps, Hammett is posted to the cold and inhospitable island of Adak, in the Aleutians, an island chain stretching from Alaska's Pacific coast toward Japan. Here, with a small team of men he edits an army newspaper called The fff Adakian. In the Aleutians, Hammett is known as Sam or 'Fop'. Although he is writing no new material other than for the newspape1; his novels are reprinted by Dell in 25 cent paperback and Spivak begins publishing his old short stories in digest form. Films of his novels are being made (The MDltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in 1941 and The Glass Key with Alan Ladd as Ned Beaumont in 1942) and several radio versions of his novels are broadcast. In 1943 Warner Brothers release Watch on tlte Rhine, which earns Hammett an Aeademy Award Nomination for Best Screenplay. In 1944 Chandler publishes his famous essay, 'The Simple Art of Murder' which celebrates Hammett's contribution to hardboiled fiction-in the past tense. Discharged from the army in 1945, Hammett returns to New York where he teaches a mystery-writing class. He abandons another novel, 'The Valley Sheep Are Fatter '. While Hammett is still unable to finish a writing project, two radio series based on his characters, The Adventures of Sam Spade and TIte Fat MDn (based on the Continental Op) begin in 1946. Although Hammett is credited with some involvement in these series, he has no creative input. In the same year he becomes President of a left-wing group called the Ovil Rights Congress. Drinking heavily, Hammett is hospitalised briefly in 1948. On his release from hospital he briefly gives up drinking. Warner Brothers, who own the film rights to The MDltese Falcon, initiate a claim for breach of copyright regarding the character Sam Spade in the radio series The Adventures of Sam Spade. ttL. Hammett goes to Hollywood to write a film treatment for William WyleJ; but cannot do it. He also claims to be working on a novel, but is unable to produce more than a few pages. He to conhas, and will continue, ｨｯｷ･ｶｾ＠ tribute to structure and dialogue in Lillian Hellman's plays. The Civil Rights Congress had put up bail for eleven members of the American Communist Party, charged with conspiracy. After four of the 11 absconded, Hammett, as President of the CRC, was called to testify. It was thought that contributors to the bail fund might be harbouring the fow: Hammett, ｨｯｷ･ｶｾ＠ refused to answer questions, and was jailed for contempt. Overnight, Hammett became persona non gratiD: radio series based on Hammett's characters were dropped from the schedules (The Adventures of Sam Spade; The Adventures of the Thin MDn; The Fat MDn); Universal took Hammett's name off the credits of The Fat MDn; a re-run of The MDltese Falcon was cancelled, and Spivak ceased publishing the Hammett digests. Nineteen fifty-one was a bad year for Hammett. Ironically, he won the copyright case against Warner Brothers, and retained rights to the character Sam Spade, but the radio series had been already been dropped. On his release from prison, Hammett is broke financially and in health terms: the spefl in prison didn't make the Sickly Hammett any better, and the IRS demanded $111,000 in back-taxes, making an attachment to Hammett's earnings. weap it all, Black MDsk finally folded. Unable to maintain his NY apartment, Hammett moved in with Hell- man at Hardscrabble Farm. HoweveJ; Hellman is forced to sell the farm in 1952 to meet a tax demand from the IRS, according to William E Nolan, or to pay legal costs after being called before the HUAC, as Richard Layman has it. Hammett moves into a cottage on a friend's estate where, living as a recluse, he will fail in his attempt to write a novel (,Tulip') about a man who cannot finish writing a novel. In 1953, at the height of the cold war, Hammett is called to testify again, this time before the Senate Internal Security Sub-committee, another of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist interrogation committees. When Hammettisasked what he thinks aboutkeeping the books of communist sympathisers on the shelves during the fight against communism, he replies 'Well I think-<lf course, I don't know-if I were fighting communism, I don't think I would do it by giving people any books at all'. As a result, Hammett's books were taken off the shelves of state-department libraries. Unable to live alone due to his rapidly declining health, Hammett moves in with HeIlman in 1957, living with her on Martha' s Vineyard in the ｳｵｲｮｭ･ｾ＠ and in her New York house in the wintel: After suffering a collapse in 1960, Hammett is admitted to New York's Lenox Hill Hospital where, on January 10th 1961, he dies, aged 66. The cause of death is a cancerous lung ｴｵｲｮｯｾ complicated by emphysema, pneumonia, and heart, ｬｩｶ･ｾ＠ kidney, spleen and prostate disease. The man who was once described by his drinking pal, screenwriter Nunally Johnson, as living as if he 'had no expectation of being alive '''1M tilM'.r- much beyond Thursday' finally succumbed to the ravages of a life of excess. In a final twist of irony, Hammett, who had enraged the US State by refusing to kowtow before the state interrogators, is buried-to the chagrin of the FBI-in Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, alongside US heroes and past presidents. He had, after all served his country twice, took a stand against fascism, and contributed to the national litera lure. After Hammett's death, his will was nullified because of the debt to the IRS. HeIlman managed to secure his copyrights for herself for $5,000, making a payment to the government to clear Hammett's debt. Hellman also managed to gyp Hammett's wife and daughters from a share in the royalties which, by Joan Mellen's calculation, amounted to 'hundreds of thousands of dollars'. Until Hellman's death in 1984, she obstructed researchers, and sought to control Hammett beyond the grave. Joan Mellen's joint biography of Hellman and Hammett exposes much that Hellman had managed to suppress in earlier Hammett biographies. Mellen reveals Hammett's daughter Josephine managed to secure the copyrights of the novels during the 1990s. Currently, all of Hammett's novels are in print in the US, and most are available in a single volume, entitled ｾ＠ Four Great N(JUe/s, in the UK, where ｾ＠ Thin Man remains in print. The novella ｾ Woman in the Dark was published in hardback in UK and US editions in 1988. Three volumes of stories complete the essential collection: ｾ Big Knockvver and Other Stories, with an introduction by 111 Hellman (first published in 1966) is readily available; this coUection contains the fragment 'Thlip' and nine other stories. While The Continental Op, edited by Steven Marcus (first published in 1974) has gone out of print, second-hand copies of this seven-story compilation are easily found. Knopf published twenty stories in NighlnuJre 'IOum in the US in 1999 (reviewed in Crime TIme 26); Amazon.co.uk can deliver a copy of this to a UK address within 48 hows. Further reading: the Hammett biographies Richard Layman, Shadow Mm, The UfocfDashielI HDmmett (London: Junction Books, 1981). William E Nolan, Dashiell HDmmett: A Ufo at the Edge (London: Arthur Barke!; 1983). Diane Johnson, DoshieJJ HDmmett:A Ufo (NY. Random House, 1983). Joan MeUen, Hellman and HDmmett (NY. HarperCoUins, 1996). And... NIGH1MARE TOWN BY DASIflELL HAMMETI; KNOPJ; Ul<£lS.71/ US$25.00 HARDBACK. William E Nolan's introduction to this coUection offers a useful summary of Hammett's writing ｣｡ｲ･ｾ＠ sketching in whatmightbecaUed the 'authorised version' of Hammett's life. Nolan perpetuates, ｨｯｷ･ｶｾ some stories about Hammett which ought, by now, to be treated with more caution or Simply put right. For example, Joan MeUen's 1996 dual biography, Hellman and HDmmett (reviewed by me in Crime TIme 6), the first biography of Hammett to be written without the cloying threat of litigation from Lillian Hellman's estate, revealed what had been concealed by others-that Jose 11+ Dolan's first ､｡ｵｧｨｴｾ＠ Mary Jane, was not in fact Hammett's child at aU (Mary Jane Hammett died in 1992 without knowing this). There is no hint in the introduction that Nolan has read MeUen's work, or has revised his views on Hammett's domestic arrangements siitce his own Hammett biography, A Ufe at the Edge (1983). While Nolan has probably published more words on Hammett than any other critic, there is scope for a little more scepticism in this introduction. Richard Layman realised as long ago as 1986 that, by the time Hammett was the leading light of the so-caUed 'hard-boiled schoof of detective fiction, any statement Hammett made about his past as a detective should be treated with care, if only because Hammett might be inclined to enhance his own past as a form of self promotion. One example that Layman discusses in Shadow MDn: The Ufo of Dashiell H1lmmett is an episode concerning the recovery of lost jeweUery which Hammett had recounted on more than one occasion. The way Hammett told it, he had been responsible for locating a stash of stolen jeweUery in the funnel of a ship the day it was due to set sail for Australia, the point being that his detective skill had cost him a trip to Australia. As Layman reads it, ｨｯｷ･ｶｾ＠ by the time anyone was interested enough in Hammett to be bothered about his detective past, Hammett-the-author was in a position to benefit by talking-up his exploits as a detective. ｍｯｲ･ｶｾ＠ through research, Layman had established that Hammett was not actuaUy employed as a Pinkerton operative at the time he claimed to have been salvaging stolen jewellery. Here then scepticism is backed up with ,"- titM.,..t. research. Meanwhile, Nolan appe31ll to be happy to cite Hammett's longtime lover UJJian Hellman as a reliable source: it has been shown on any number of occasions that, as a pathological liar whose ' memoirs' are highly elaborate fictions, Hellman should be treated as anything but a reliable source. Niggles about the introduction aside, this is a wonderful albeit long­overdue collection of Hammett material. The opening story is 'Nightmare Town', which provides the title for the collection as a whole. In this 1924 story Hammett departs from the usual setting of the twentieth­century city for the deserttown of Izzard, where things are not as they seem and organised corruption is the order of the day. The marvellous opening scene, Steve ThreefaIJ's arrival in Izzard, displays Hammett's eye for detail, fondness of drink and his witty style. The collection makes some material available that has long been unavailable or hard to locate. Seven of the twenty stories feature the Continental Op, Hammett's nameless detective. Some of the early Op stories, along with The Milltese Falcon, can be counted as Hammett's most accomplished writing. Here we find 'House Dick' (aka 'Bodies Piled Up') from 1923; a slew of stories from 1924: 'Night Shots', 'One Hour', 'Zigzags of 1l-eachery', 'Death on Pine Street' (aka 'Women, fblitics and Murder') and 'Who Killed Bob ThaI', and one tale from 1925, 'Tom, Dick or Harry' (aka 'Mike, Alec or Rufus'). 'Zigzags of 1l-eachery', a complex tale of blackmail, is one of Hammett's better Op yarns, not only for its pacing and plot, but also for the way Hammett manages to work in to the story some advice for the reader on the art of shadowing. Although the collection reprints the three Sam Spade stories, these are not particularly notable Ｈｾ＠ Man Called Spade', '1l>o Many Have Lived' and They Can Only Hang You Once'). Hammett knocked these out in the 1930s while he was living fast and spending his Hollywood income as fast as it came in, so they are not written under the same conditions as his earlier shorts. While Nolan's introduction describes these as'crisp, efficient and swift-moving', the first two are dismissed by Richard Layman in ShadaulTtuln, his biography of Hammett, as 'simple rewrites of earlier stories' while the third is'so Simplistic no model is necessary'. That said, 'They Can Only Hang You Once' has a great opening line: 'My name is Ronald Ames said Sam Spade'. The stories did provide Hammet with a means of establishing ownership of the character Sam Spade, a character Warner Brothers wanted to cJaim ownership of at a time when CBS were broadcasting The Adventures of Sam Spade on the radio. Although the radio stories were not written by Hammett, CBS played up Hammett's reputation as the c;reator of Sam Spade. The collection ends with a pair ofThin Man tales: ｾ＠ Man Named Thin', a San Francisco based tale featuring the detective-poet, Robin Thin. Although Hammett wrote this story in the mid-to-Iate 19205, thatis,ataboutthe timeheworl<ed for jeweller Albert Samuels, it was not published until 1961. Here, Hammett amusingly implicates his real wife Jose Dolan in a jewel robbery, placing 'Mrs Dolan'in the story, complete with a bag of groceries. The final story is the sotty called The First Thin Man', featuring San Francisco detective John Guild Hammett began this story in 1930, but abandoned it, unfinished. It was the later 'New York' version, with Nick and Nora Charles, which was published as Hammett's last novel in 1933. 'The First Thin Man' takes a theme Hammett had used several times before, pitting a writer against a detective: This is of course the theme that bedevilled Hammett, the detective who became a writer and wrote himself out ina decade. This collection is an essential companion to the two earlier volumes .of Hammett short stories, The Big Knockover and other stories (1966) and The Continental Op (1974). Although you probably won' t find it on the shelf in your local bookshop in the UK, Amazon.co.uk will deliver it to UK addresses in about 24 hours, for £16.60 which includes postage. What are you waiting for? Buy it now.