The Lost Detective

A fascinating portrait of how Dashiell Hammett transformed himself from Pinkerton detective to author of the most iconic detective novels of the twentieth century.

Dashiell Hammett’s life on center stage is well known. But before he became a household name as America’s greatest hard-boiled crime writer, before Lillian Hellman and McCarthy-era blacklisting, Hammett led a life of action that has been largely overlooked. Born in 1894, he left school at thirteen and joined the Pinkerton National Detective Agency as an operative in 1915. He remained with the agency until, in 1922, the tuberculosis he contracted during WWI forced him to retire—prompting one of America’s most acclaimed writing careers.

Nathan Ward’s enthralling The Lost Detective for the first time links Hammett’s life experience to his stories. His childhood, his life in San Francisco, and especially his years as a detective deeply informed his writing and characters, from the nameless Continental Op—hero of his stories and early novels—to Sam Spade and Nick Charles. He would write five novels between 1929 and 1934, two of them (The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man) becoming American classics, inspiring generations of crime writers from Chandler to Connelly. Yet after The Thin Man Hammett never finished another book, and his popular image was largely shaped by the remembrances of Hellman, who knew him after his literary reputation had been made. The Lost Detective illuminates Hammett’s transformation from real detective to great American crime writer, casting brilliant new light on one of America’s most celebrated novelists, his books, and his world.

Nathan Ward is the author of Dark Harbor: The War for the New York Waterfront. He was an editor at American Heritage, and he has written for the New York Times and other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, New York