Reviews of Dashiell Hammett

"Marling’s study was the first to benefit from Layman’s Shadow Man, and the opening and closing chapters of his work have a biographical focus. The middle four chapters – "The Short Stories," "The Black Mask Novels," "The Falcon and the Key," and "Lillian and The Thin Man" – focus on the fiction. While the format of the Twayne series usually demands a good deal of plot summary, Marling manages to offer insightful readings of the fiction while still giving the plot coverage his format calls for. His section of the short stories is limited to what he terms "the best of the anthologized pieces," but in limiting his scope he allows himself the space to elaborate on the merits of the stories he has chosen. In this chapter, his reflections on Hammett’s style are especially keen, and in a few short pages he makes a strong case that Hammett’s "was a made, not a found, style" (46). Overall, Marling’s study mixes biography and criticism, coverage and close reading, in a concise and persuasive manner."

                Christopher Mettress, The Critical Response to Dashiell Hammett. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1994. Xxxi-xxxii.