Ben Hecht began his career as a writer in 1910, at the age of sixteen, when he became a reporter for the Chicago Journal. His four years at the Journal and the nine years he spent with the Chicago Daily News (1914-1923) served as more than an apprenticeship for the novels, short stories, plays, movie scripts, memoirs, and political polemics he completed before his death on 18 April 1964. His work in journalism shaped and to an extraordinary degree defined almost everything he wrote, especially the approximately 250 short stories that he produced. As a result much of this short fiction seems more journalistic--engaging yet ephemeral--than literary. The sto ries are eminently readable and strikingly inventive, the efforts of a skilled craftsman with an understanding of popular taste. In general, however, they lack artistic depth.

Hecht came to Chicago from Racine, Wisconsin, where he lived most of his youth after being born...