by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 14, 2008

Dashiell Hammett was a master of detective fiction, culminating with his 1930 masterpiece "The Maltese Falcon." But his style originated in some great short detective stories he wrote during the 1920s. In 1962, eleven of the best were assembled into an entertaining collection called "The Big Knockover."

Hammett had worked as a detective, so he understood the rhythm of a real crime case. As the first facts arrive, his detective is also studying the character of his client - and soon he's using his intuition to understand their relationship to the other suspects. In "Fly Paper" there's a runaway daughter from "a wealthy and decently prominent New York Family." But when a telegram arrives promising she'll return for $1,000, is it really from the daughter? The stories all move fast, opening with the detective's quick introduction of the case, as he begins meeting the characters as part of the investigation.

Hammett always keeps it interesting. In "The Gutting of Couffignal," a wealthy estate suddenly finds itself the scene of a gun battle. "Dead Yellow Women" finds the detective investigating a dark underworld hidden in San Francisco's Chinatown. "This King Business" involves real royalty in Europe while investigating the dispensation of a wealthy 21-year-old's inheritance. Playwright Lillian Hellman edited the collection together, and she made sure that the stories included always represented Hammett at his best

Hellman enjoyed a 30-year romance with Dashiell Hammett, and she wrote a remarkably poignant introduction for the book describing their life together. In it the two sound remarkably like Nick and Nora, the playfully witty couple Hammett created for his novel "The Thin Man." "I would say I wanted to get everything straight for the days after his death when I would write his biography and he would say that I was not to bother writing his biography because it would turn out to be the history of Lillian Hellman with an occasional reference to a friend called Hammett."

But in the end Hellman fulfilled her promise, delivering for Dashiell the ultimate tribute. She edited together this wonderful collection of some of his finest stories, preserving an indisputable record of his incredible writing abilities.

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