Hammett's first novel clearly shows the writer's deep-seated proletarian biases and his disenchantment both with the social structure of the United States and with his own former role as an enforcement tool for the exploiters.

The Pinkerton Detective Agency, in the years after its founding in 1850, served an important law enforcement function in the U.S.; in the years when there was virtually no national law enforcement agency dealing with interstate crime, Pinkerton's was frequently hired to deal with cases which went beyond the jurisdiction and capacity of local police forces. The attempts by the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.)

to organize industrial labor on a nationwide basis and the resulting, often violent strikes were a boon to Pinkerton's agency, which was frequently hired to break strikes and disrupt union activities. Hammett himself was given several assignments of this nature and made many...