captures what it feels like to read Hammett's early work and, as Ward says, 'watch a sickly ex-detective in his late twenties, with an eighth-grade education, gradually, improbably, teach himself to write.', A gritty portrait of the 20th century's great pulp poet Dashiell Hammett, who turned his days gumshoeing for the Pinkerton Detective Agency into bawdy and muscular American classics., 'Funny thing about books, some of them are a delight and a pleasure.

a lively, witty account of how Hammett came to be Hammett-a portrait of the artist, if you will, as a cynical man., ighly entertaining. With deft investigative work, Ward shows how much of Hammett's fiction owed to Pinkerton reports. And as we Hammett fans know, there are few personas, few writers in 20th-century literature period, more interesting to read about., Ward does have a few weapons at his disposal-namely, meticulous reporting, a keen eye for detail and an elegant writing style-and he uses them to make the tale seem new again., Nathan Ward shows that Hammett's innovative style did not, as it may have seemed, spring fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. to look at how the Hammett persona was created. Ward wisely chose to focus on Hammett's formative years., Hardboiled crime novel fans will find Ward's research into what it meant to Hammett to be an actual detective before he wrote about them quite fascinating., 'True crime done right, sharply researched and written with an economy of language and a minimum of conjecture and as atmospheric as a 2AM stroll down the wharf on a late October night.' - The Daily Beast on Dark Harbor 'Ward does have a few weapons at his disposal-namely, meticulous reporting, a keen eye for detail and an elegant writing style-and he uses them to make the tale seem new again.' - New York Times on Dark Harbor, As brisk and conversational as a magazine feature, The Lost Detective invites readers not just to explore Hammett's early years in more detail and consider how those formative experiences helped shape his writing career, but also. There can be little doubt that Hammett's work with the Pinkertons was the greatest influence on who he became, both as a person and as an author.

but none have explored as deeply his life before he became a writer.

Fittingly, there have been numerous biographies of Hammett. Splendid biography of this keystone figure of American letters.

The Lost Detective by Nathan Ward