Before reading “The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett” by Nathan Ward, I knew very little about Dashiell Hammett. I had seen “The Maltese Falcon” and maybe another movie or two based on his books and knew he was an important figure in crime fiction but I did not know much more.

This book briefly describes a childhood in rural southern Maryland, Philadelphia and Baltimore. After leaving school and failing at several jobs, he found his niche with Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

He took time off from the Pinkertons to serve in the Army during World War I, where he contracted tuberculosis. As his health permitted he continued as an operative or private detective with the Pinkertons for several years. He also tried his hand at writing. Eventually his health pushed him to decide to be a full-time writer.

The focus of this book is how his experience as a private detective with the Pinkerton agency shaped his style of writing the detective story. But in the process the author gives us a wonderful short biography. Incidentally, along the way the reader learns a good bit about the Pinkertons.

Other reviews will surely discuss how well the author related Dashiell Hammett ’s Pinkerton detective experience to his hard-boiled way of telling stories. From my point of view, I can only say that I enjoyed the biography and the case the author makes about the relationship of Hammett’s Pinkerton detective experience to his hard-boiled crime fiction seems very reasonable.