“Before he became a household name in America as perhaps our greatest hard-boiled crime writer, before his attachment to Lillian Hellman and blacklisting during the McCarthy era, and his subsequent downward spiral, Dashiell Hammett led a life of action. 

Based on original research across the country, The Lost Detective is the first book to illuminate Hammett’s transformation from real detective to great American detective writer, throwing brilliant new light on one of America’s most celebrated and remembered novelists and his world.”

The Lost Detective is a bite-sized biography of Hammett that also offers a fascinating if narrow look-see inside the Pinkerton Agency of the teens and early twenties. Tip: Don’t skip the footnotes!