Dashiell Hammett is generally credited with bringing a new degree of authenticity as well as artistry to the crime fiction that flourished in the pulp magazines of the first decades of the twentieth century. Hammett created several of the most famous American detectives: the anonymous, world-weary Continental Op; Sam Spade, the cynical protagonist of The Maltese Falcon (1930); and Nick and Nora Charles, the husband-and-wife detectives introduced in The Thin Man (1934). He based the characters of Nick and Nora on his own relationship with playwright Lillian Hellman. At the time of the publication of The Thin Man Hammett was at the height of his fame; however, his literary output ended with that novel because of a variety of factors, including his alcoholism and ill health and to some extent his stormy relationship with Hellman.

At the time of his death in 1961, Hammett's literary achievement had been overshadowed by his...