Dashiell Hammett's early stories open like a posse of G-men kicking in a speakeasy door. Take 1923's "Bodies Piled Up," one of 28 stories and two novellas newly gathered in Vintage Crime's "The Big ...

I found my first Dashiell Hammett book by accident. His writing comes in a form that most people don't expect to produce genius--the mystery. Books other than serious novels, it seems, don't "count" ...

On January 11, 1961, mystery writer Dashiell Hammett died. Fifty-three years later, he still fascinates. This has less to do with his writings (whose style and subject matter have been endlessly ...

The life of the great American crime writer Dashiell Hammett appears to have been one very brainy, money-oiled train wreck. A longtime alcoholic; a habitual womanizer who today would likely get busted ...