5/18/2023 0 Comments The Lost Detective by Nathan Ward![]() ![]() Since none of his early writing has survived, however, even Hammett’s motivation to become a writer is shrouded in mystery. Ward also closely reads Hammett’s detective stories for clues. Other information about the Pinkerton years came from Hammett researcher and journalist David Fechheimer, who tracked down operatives who had known Hammett. Ward can only deduce what they might have contained from other operatives’ work. Unfortunately, finding little evidence of Hammett’s years working for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, Ward often guesses what Hammett might have felt, done, or thought. Although he speculates, for example, that “doing his scores of operative reports” honed Hammett’s ability to write pithy narratives, none of those reports are in the Pinkerton archive at the Library of Congress. ![]() Journalist and former American Heritage editor Ward ( Dark Harbor: The War for the New York Waterfront, 2011, etc.) began this lively, but ultimately slight, book with a single question: how did Hammett transform himself “from Pinkerton operative to master of the American detective story”? The many biographies of Hammett (Ward cites a few in his bibliography) failed to answer his question, so he set out on his own investigation. ![]() Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961), private eye. ![]()
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