The Glass Key

Description

Ned Beaumont is a tall, thin, moustache-wearing, TB-ridden, drinking, gambling, hanger-on to the political boss of a corrupt Eastern city. Nevertheless, like every Hammett hero (and like Hammett himself), he has an unbreakable, if idiosyncratic moral code. Ned's boss wants to better himself with a thoroughbred senator's daughter; but does he want it badly enough to commit murder? If he's innocent, who wants him in the frame? Beaumont must find out.

Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was born in Maryland and worked in a number of menial jobs until he became an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. His experiences as a private detective laid the foundations for his writing career. His work includes Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key, The Thin Man and some eighty short stories, mostly published in Black Mask magazine.

Not just the first of the tough school of crime-writing but the best * THE TIMES * Great crime fiction started with Hammett -- James Ellroy He is master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer * BOSTON GLOBE * He put these people down on paper as they are, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used -- Raymond Chandler His name remains one of the most important and recognisable in the crime fiction genre. Hammett set the standard for much of the work that would follow * INDEPENDENT * The dean of the school of hard-boiled fiction * NEW YORK TIMES * One of the foremost practitioners of the hard-boiled detective story * SCOTSMAN *