PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Nathan Ward is the author of Dark Harbor: The War for the New York Waterfront. He was an editor at American Heritage, and he has written for the New York Times and other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Funny thing about books, some of them are a delight and a pleasure. Thus Nathan Ward's The Lost Detective--yes it's very well-written, yes the history is carefully done, but it has that glow. So, this you will like. -- Alan Furst, author of MIDNIGHT IN EUROPE The Lost Detective humanizes my grandfather, while at the same time illuminating the context of his life and times. Links between Hammett's fiction and Pinkertons and his early (pre-Hellman) family life are particularly satisfying. -- Julie M. Rivett, co-editor of SELECTED LETTERS OF DASHIELL HAMMETT and THE HUNTER AND OTHER STORIES As a devoted Hammett aficionado, I've read most books about him and published his daughter's memoir, but learned so much in this captivating examination of the great author's life that I feel compelled to reread his complete works with far deeper understanding than ever before. -- Otto Penzler, Editor, THE BEST AMERICAN NOIR OF THE CENTURY Ward's focus on the origins of Hammett's writing style and his connecting the events of the author's background to the fiction are the highlights of this brief, accessible biography ... Highly recommended. Library Journal As brisk and conversational as a magazine feature, The Lost Detective invites readers not just to explore Hammett's early years in more detail and consider how those formative experiences helped shape his writing career, but also ... to look at how the Hammett persona was created. And as we Hammett fans know, there are few personas, few writers in 20th-century literature period, more interesting to read about. The Washington Post A gritty portrait of the 20th century's great pulp poet Dashiell Hammett, who turned his days gumshoeing for the Pinkerton Detective Agency into bawdy and muscular American classics. O, the Oprah Magazine [H]ighly entertaining ... captures what it feels like to read Hammett's early work and, as Ward says, 'watch a sickly ex-detective in his late twenties, with an eighth-grade education, gradually, improbably, teach himself to write.' The Boston Globe
