Dashiell Hammett was one of the fathers of hardboiled writing in the 1920s. His stories in Black Mask have the lean, pared-down style that was to become the trademark of the tough, action-packed crime yarns that were to follow in the heyday of the magazine. Although his writing career spanned twenty years, Hammett only wrote a handful of novels, of which three are Hammett writing at his peak: Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key. Sadly, Hammett's writing career was ending just…
