Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and political activist. Born in Maryland, he worked at various jobs before taking up a role as an operative at the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which provided the inspiration for much of his writing. He is widely regarded as the father of the modern American mystery, and his five novels, published in the space of five years between 1929 and 1934, are classics of the genre. For the final thirty years of his life he was involved in a relationship with the playwright Lillian Hellman. He died of lung cancer following a lifetime of heavy smoking and drinking, his body further weakened by tuberculosis and the aftereffects of imprisonment for his political beliefs.
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“Let’s talk about the black bird . . . ”
I had read Sherlock Holmes at school, and also discovered popular fiction in the form of The Godfather and Jaws, but when I saw John Huston’s film of The Maltese Falcon, and found a Picador edition of Hammett’s Four Great Novels, everything came together.
Though not even Hammett’s favorite of his novels, The Maltese Falcon has been routinely described as the greatest mystery novel ever written. Eighty-two years on from its first publication, its importance as the novel that kick-started the hard-boiled movement—and its influence on Chandler, Macdonald, and the rest—is hard to dispute. I would suggest, however, that its reputation rests on far more than the place it rightly holds in the history of the genre.
Simply put, it is a great novel, as well as being a significant one.
I have always had issues with the phrase “mystery fiction”—the term routinely used in the United States to describe what we in the U.K. would call “crime fiction.” It certainly seems inadequate when taking into consideration much that has been written in that genre from the second half of the twentieth century onward, when a good many of the greatest “mystery” novels would stake no claim to being mysteries at all. That is to say, the “mysterious” element, where there is one—typically the “whodunit,” of course—is far from being the most important aspect of the book.
The Maltese Falcon, however, is the book that for me most perfectly fits the mold of the mystery novel. Indeed, with his third novel, and most especially with its protagonist, Sam Spade, Hammett could be said to have created the mold in the first place, and—if I might be allowed to stretch the analogy to breaking point—to have smashed the damn thing to pieces once it was finished.
The central mystery lies not in the novel’s byzantine plot. The falcon itself is the most famous MacGuffin in literature, and Spade’s involvement with those searching for it is no more than a means to an end. He falls in with Brigid O’Shaughnessy, Casper Gutman, and Joel Cairo, feigning an interest in the falcon and playing these three off against one another for no reason other than to apprehend his partner’s killer.
Doesn’t he?
There is, of course, at least one other interpretation of Spade’s actions, and it is the way in which Hammett leaves readers to schematize the character’s consciousness, to decide for themselves his true motivations, that creates a mystery far more complex and absorbing than a killer’s identity or the whereabouts of an ancient artifact.
The reader can only guess what Spade is thinking as he walks the streets after visiting the scene of the murder of his partner, Miles Archer, or beds Brigid O’Shaughnessy. The reader has only Spade’s words and his seemingly calm, precise actions on which to base any theory. In his earlier advertising days, Hammett had written about this technique, which he called meiosis.
It is a rhetorical trick, the employment of understatement, not to deceive, but to increase the impression made . . .
Hammett had learned early on that “less is more,” and uses that knowledge to supreme effect throughout the novel. The characterization is as pared down as the prose, revealed solely through dialogue alone. The action is used sparingly and is all the more effective for it, and of the three murders that take place in the course of the narrative, only one death—that of Captain Jacoby—is shown. Though guns are brandished often enough, the conflict is created for the most part through the machinations of the novel’s major characters, each of whom seems willing to do almost anything to lay a hand on the elusive falcon; a prize that—like those in pursuit of it—turns out to be far from what it seems.
The cast of murderers and manipulators has never been bettered. Gutman, Cairo, O’Shaughnessy, and Wilmer, the boy gunman, were all based on individuals with whom Hammett had come into contact during his time as a Pinkerton agent. O’Shaughnessy was a former client, Wilmer a criminal christened the “midget bandit,” Cairo a forger, and Gutman a suspected German agent (though many have suggested he was based largely on Fatty Arbuckle, whose rape case Hammett had worked on). Only Spade himself came solely from Hammett’s imagination:
Spade has no original. He is a dream man in the sense that he is what most of the private detectives I worked with would like to have been and in their cockier moments thought they approached.
Though fixed in many people’s minds as the archetypal hard-boiled detective, Hammett’s “dream man” is no Chandlerian knight-errant, and neither is he Humphrey Bogart. Iconic as that performance certainly was, it is significant that, for his 1941 film adaptation, John Huston wanted George Raft for the role. Raft, known primarily for his portrayal of killers, was certainly closer to Hammett’s description of a “blond Satan” than Bogart, and it is arguable that, had Huston got his first choice, Spade’s motivations might have remained every bit as shifting and shadowy to moviegoers as they had been to readers.
“Your private detective,” Hammett said, “wants to be a hard and shifty fellow, able . . . to get the best of anybody he comes into contact with, whether criminal, innocent by-stander or client.”
Though no slouch plot-wise, Hammett was always more interested in exploring moral ambiguities, and nowhere does he do it better than through the character of Sam Spade. Hammett’s trick is to allow the reader to believe that Spade is morally corrupt—the casually lit cigarette at the news of Archer’s murder, the removal of Archer’s name from the door, the affair with Archer’s wife—only to reveal much later that he may not be quite as bad as he would like people (and Hammett would like us) to believe.
“Don’t be too sure I’m as crooked as I’m supposed to be . . . ”
Hammett’s use of misdirection in this cause is masterfully done. For the vast majority of the book, the murder of Miles Archer is never mentioned, and Spade appears to focus on the pursuit of the falcon while actually searching for his partner’s killer. To this end, he is willing to do whatever is necessary. This includes falling into bed with archetypal femme fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy (though this is not to say that he does not enjoy it). As far as any doubts about O’Shaughnessy’s character are concerned, Hammett uses Effie Perrine—arguably the only wholly decent character in the book—to offer what appears to be the definitive judgment. When Spade asks Effie her opinion of Brigid, Effie tells him, “I’m for her,” and, from that point on, the reader is for her, too, trusting completely in Effie’s judgment.
In the same way, the reader falls for the picture presented of Spade, largely by himself. We are encouraged to see Spade as unlikable at the very least, thanks to his affair with Iva Archer, his partner’s wife, but even taking the period into consideration, this is hardly symptomatic of moral bankruptcy. Though keen to preserve his own somewhat dubious image, Spade goes so far as to hand over the thousand dollars he took from Gutman, which, bearing in mind the drugging and beatings he has taken, he might well have considered reasonable recompense for his pains. There are clues, of course, as to the character that Spade does his best to mask, notably when he waltzes Gutman’s daughter around a hotel room in an effort to keep her alive. She is a character who really serves no other purpose in the novel than to give us a glimpse of Spade’s honorable side.
Much has been said about—and perhaps too much read into—the so-called Flitcraft Parable, the digres
sion in which Spade tells Brigid the story of a missing Tacoma real estate agent. There seems little point in adding to the weight of this analysis, save to say that for me it simply and skillfully illustrates Spade’s pragmatic worldview. In a world in which chance plays an important part, he is a man who will do whatever is necessary to get the job done, however tempting it might be to “play the sap.” When he finally hands Miles Archer’s killer over to the authorities, he has no regrets, no second thoughts. Instead, Spade reels off seven—seven—good reasons why it makes sense to send the culprit to what will certainly be the death chamber.
The simplest reason of all is also the most revealing: “When a man’s partner is killed, he’s supposed to do something about it.”
Dorothy Parker “mooned” over Spade for days after reading the novel, and while later on she would be even more love-struck by Philip Marlowe—fickle, that Algonquin mob—it was clear that his new type of detective in a new kind of novel had become instantly iconic. It is interesting to speculate as to whether, had he continued to write, Hammett would have brought back Spade in further novels. I like to believe that he would have resisted the temptation. The character had served its purpose, and Hammett was surely savvy enough to recognize—even back then—the inherent law of diminishing returns within which series characters operate. Marlowe was certainly a lot less interesting in The Long Goodbye than he was in The Big Sleep, and though Hammett’s poor health robbed us of some wonderful work, we should be grateful that we were never given the chance to get inside the head of his most famous character.
Any discussion of Hammett’s work would be incomplete without sufficient tribute to the prose itself. Chandler is usually held up as the more accomplished stylist, but I’m not convinced. Eighty-something years on and I think The Maltese Falcon holds up far better than many of the Marlowe novels, not least because the “comedy” is far blacker and more restrained. Though Spade is not the wisecracker that Marlowe would be, the fizzing, fat-free exchanges with Brigid and, most particularly, with Gutman, are beautifully structured master classes in rhythm and economy. In places, the dialogue is not a million miles away from the sort of comedy of manners being acted out across the Atlantic on West End stages, and it is tempting to wonder whether Hammett had ever read Noël Coward, whose play Private Lives was first performed the same year that The Maltese Falcon was published. Take out the guns, throw in a tennis racket and a pair of French doors . . .
Reading Hammett now, it is hard to separate the work from what we know about the man. His left-wing views and passionate devotion to the cause of civil rights are clear as day in much of his writing. Sam Spade remains unafraid and unbowed, and though physically a lot more fragile than his creation, Hammett spent much of his life showing the same refusal to yield in the face of persecution from the State Department, the IRS, and Joe McCarthy.
It is this principle, this allegiance to the underdog, hand in hand with unequaled style and the creation of a new kind of popular novel, that makes Hammett so unique and enduring.
A very different kind of radical storyteller—the Clash’s Joe Strummer—chose to read The Maltese Falcon as he lay in the hospital recovering from hepatitis in 1978.
Hammett is also uniquely cool . . .
Raymond Chandler may have given hard-boiled detective fiction a style, but it was Hammett’s ball he was running with.
Mark Billingham is one of the U.K.’s tallest and most acclaimed crime writers. His series of novels featuring DI Tom Thorne has twice won him the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year Award, and the books have been nominated for seven CWA Daggers. His debut novel, Sleepyhead, was chosen by the Sunday Times as one of the one hundred books that had shaped the decade. A television series based on the Thorne novels starred David Morrissey as Tom Thorne, and a series based on his stand-alone novel In the Dark is in development with the BBC. Mark Billingham’s latest novels are Rush of Blood (U.K.) and The Demands (U.S.). Visit him online at www.markbillingham.com.
The Glass Key
by Dashiell Hammett (1931)
DAVID PEACE
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Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and political activist. Born in Maryland, he worked at various jobs before taking up a role as an operative at the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which provided the inspiration for much of his writing. He is widely regarded as the father of the modern American mystery, and his five novels, published in the space of five years between 1929 and 1934, are classics of the genre. For the final thirty years of his life, he was involved in a relationship with the playwright Lillian Hellman. He died of lung cancer following a lifetime of heavy smoking and drinking, his body further weakened by tuberculosis and the aftereffects of his imprisonment for his political beliefs.
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In February 1931, in New York City, Dashiell Hammett was thirty-six years old and had published three novels. The Maltese Falcon, his third novel, had been described as “the best American detective story yet written” and had been reprinted seven times in 1930. In February 1931, in New York City, Dashiell Hammett was a success. And he had waited a long time to be a success. He had practiced for it. He had prepared for it. Dashiell Hammett had left his wife and two daughters in California. He had moved to New York City. He had checked into a hotel. He had hit the city. He had painted the town red. A few shades of red. Dashiell Hammett was the Toast of the Town.
In February 1931, in New York City, Dashiell Hammett was trying to finish his fourth novel. Held back by laziness. Held back by drunkenness. Held back by illness. In February 1931, in New York City, Dashiell Hammett stopped being lazy. He stopped being drunk. He stopped being ill. In February 1931, in New York City, in one thirty-hour writing session, Dashiell Hammett finished his fourth novel. Dashiell Hammett believed his fourth novel was the best novel he had written. Dashiell Hammett believed his fourth novel was the best novel he could write. His fourth novel was The Glass Key.
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The book begins with the roll of dice. Green dice across a green table. The narrator, in a third person, subjective voice—and that, if you care about reading, if you care about writing, matters because it is rare, because it is both objective and subjective, because it is the mark of a genius—is Ned Beaumont. Ned Beaumont drinks. Ned Beaumont gambles. Ned Beaumont fixes things—people and situations—for Paul Madvig. Paul Madvig is a politician. And like all politicians, without any exceptions, Paul Madvig is corrupt—and that, if you care about the world, is not a glib statement, that is a true statement—and the whole point of the story of the novel. That politicians are corrupt. That politics is corruption. That politicians are criminals. That politics is crime. Robbery and murder. Democracy and capitalism. Man fucks man. Man kills man. Man eats man. Because capitalism makes people greedy, because capitalism makes people selfish. Cruel and vain. In America, in anywhere. Then and now. After the Crash of 1929, before the Crash of 2008. In 1931, in 2012. In another election year. A man is murdered. The murdered man is the son of a senator. Paul Madvig is the main suspect. Ned Beaumont can either help Paul Madvig or hinder Paul Madvig. Paul Madvig wants the senator’s daughter. For his ambition, for his career. Ned Beaumont wants the senator’s daughter, too. Not for ambition, not for career. He has no ambition, he has no career. And the book ends with one man staring at an open door.
But The Glass Key is also a book about friendship. The Glass Key is also a book about loyalty. Friendship and loyalty. In the face of corruption, in the midst of crime. Friendship and loyalty borne from experience and trial, from witness and testimony. In Dashiell Hammett: A Life, Diane Johnson wrote, “In Ned Beaumont—principled, forlorn, afflicted with an uneasy worldliness and the ability to understand the meaner motives and ambitions of his friends, and tubercular—Hammett produced his nearest self-portrait.” And Raymond Chandler agreed. In The Simple Art of Murder, Chandler wrote that The Glass Key was “the record of a man’s devotion to a friend” and swooned that Hammet
t “was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before.”
But by 1944, André Gide was searching in vain for a copy of The Glass Key. André Malraux had especially recommended The Glass Key to André Gide. André Gide was desperate to read The Glass Key. André Gide regarded Dashiell Hammett’s first novel, Red Harvest, as “a remarkable achievement, the last word in atrocity, cynicism and horror. Dashiell Hammett’s dialogues, in which every character is trying to deceive all the others and in which the truth slowly becomes visible through the haze of deception, can be compared only with the best of Hemingway. But if I speak of Hammett, it is because I seldom hear his name mentioned . . . ”
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After February 1931, after New York City, Dashiell Hammett would write another book. The Thin Man. But after The Thin Man, there were no more books. No more novels. There was laziness. There was drunkenness. There was illness. And there was war. Hammett served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army. And there was politics. Hammett joined the Communist Party United States of America. Hammett became president of the Civil Rights Congress. And there was persecution. The Civil Rights Congress was designated a Communist front group. Hammett was asked for the names of contributors to a CRC bail fund. Hammett was asked for the whereabouts of CRC fugitives. But Hammett was very loyal. Hammett was a good friend. Hammett refused to rat. Hammett refused to give the names of people. Hammett took the Fifth. Hammett was found guilty of contempt of court. And so there was prison. Hammett cleaned toilets in a West Virginia penitentiary for six months. And after his release, there was still persecution. Hammett refused to cooperate with the so-called McCarthy hearings. Hammett, who had fought for the U.S. Army in two world wars, was deemed an Un-American. Hammett was blacklisted. Hammett could not work. More persecution and now poverty. The IRS hounded Hammett for back taxes. The IRS took Hammett’s royalties. And then there was despair. Despair at his writing, at the failure of his writing. And despair at the world, at the failure of the world. Despair and failure. Retreat and withdrawal. Until Dashiell disappeared. Until Hammett vanished . . .