Tag Archives: Dashiell Hammett

Dashiell Hammett

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Today, May 27, marks the birth of Dashiell Hammett (1896-1961).

As far as I’m concerned, he was the greatest writer of detective fiction we’ve seen. Of his competitors and those who came after him, only Raymond Chandler comes close. I realize some of you might disagree with me, and that’s all right. It’s a free  cocuntry. You can be wrong if you want to. 🙂

Hammett didn’t invented the private detective genre, but he perfected it.  Probably because he worked as a detecitve himself for the Pinkerton Agency and was able to bring a level of realism to his work that no one else at the time could. Continue reading →

Hammett and Harlan

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Today, May 26, marks the birth of two of the most important writers of the 20th Century, Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) and Harlan Ellison (1934-2018).

Hammett, of course, was one of the founders of the hardboiled school of detective writing. Ellison was primarily a short fiction writer, but he will long be remembered as the author of the classic Star Trek TOS episode “The City on the Edge of Forever”. If you ever get a chance to hear a performance of his original script, do. It’s different than the filmed version in some key respects. Continue reading →