Author:Dashiell Hammett
As an operative for Pinkerton’s Detective Agency Dashiell Hammett knew about sleuthing from the inside, but his career was cut short by the ruin of his health in World War I. These three celebrated novels are therefore the products of a hard real life, not a literary education. Despite – or because of – that, Hammett had an enormous effect on mainstream writers between the wars. Like his readers, they were attracted by the combination of laconic style, sharp convincing dialogue, vivid settings and, above all, the low-life, hard-boiled characters who populate the streets of his stories. Taking detective fiction out of the drawing-room, Hammett ‘gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it’, as Raymond Chandler said. In so doing, he left his mark on modern fiction.
Brilliant, funny, encompassing everything you ever wanted to know about practically everything (including numerology, James Bond's foes, and the construction of sewers), this book is both extraordinarily learned and well plotted.
—— Sunday TimesEndlessly diverting... Even more intricate and absorbing than his international bestseller The Name of the Rose.
—— TimeBrilliant... A novel that is deeper and richer than The Name of the Rose.
—— New York TimesAn intellectual adventure story, as sensational, thrilling, and packed with arcana as Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Count of Monte Cristo.
—— The Washington PostUmberto Eco is literature's great magician... He offers us many passages of brilliance, and treats us to a Shakespearean alternation of paroxysm and intimacy, madness and wisdom. There is something here for everyone. His genius affords his readers a selection of delights that will make their heads spin.
—— Le Monde
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