Reading group: Dashiell Hammett, dean of hard-boiled detective fiction

The author of The Maltese Falcon drew on his own experience to write five great, murky novels in five wildly productive years before succumbing to writer’s block and alcoholism

I’ve now read The Maltese Falcon – and oh boy. But, following on from a few posts on last week’s Reading Group thread, I’m going to try not to say much more than that, for fear of generating spoilers.

But I don’t think there’s any danger in observing how full-formed the book seems, in both style and substance. Or in noting that it isn’t at all surprising to learn that Dashiell Hammett’s New York Times obituary declared him “the dean of the ‘hard-boiled’ school of detective fiction”. In that case, The Maltese Falcon must be his masterclass. It’s a wonderful example of the form.

What do you do here nights?” Al asked.

“They eat the dinner,” his friend said. “They come here and they eat the big dinner.”

Who’s Thursby?” Dundy demanded.

“I told Tom what I knew about him.”

He wrote at first (and almost to the end) for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay them; it was right down their street... Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not with hand-wrought duelling pistols, curare, and tropical fish. He put these people down on paper as they are, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes.”

Continue reading...