Dashiell Hammett - Maltese Falcon

Although somewhat poorly written, this is milestone in crime genre, with good sense of hypocrisy and crispy language.

History of crime fiction

Crime fiction is itself pure literature, It follows certain patterns and rules. First detective novel was written by Wilkie Collins, notorious opium eater, and it was called Moonstone. But no matter what some people say it is not pure detective novel, it is best compared to Brothers Karamazov. Crime itself took place throughout history but became recently regulated in England as an offence. First major inovator in crime genre was famous horror writer Edgar Allan Poe, whose short stories were influenced by Eugene Francois Vidocq. Soon afterwards came Arthur Conan Doyle with his interesting stories about Sherlock Holmes, unusual man who likes to sniff coke and play musing instrument until murder happens.

Maurice Leblanc took oportunity and created inverted Sherlock Holmes, called Herlock Sholmes, to avoid trouble with Artur Conan Doyle. Gaston Leroux, also frenchman, wrote outstanding novel called Phantom of the Opera which was filmed numerous times. With the rise of British crime fiction frenchmens began writing their own crime stories. Notable one was called Fantomas, master criminal written by Marcel Allain.

Detective fiction flourished in 30'and 40' and beyond with the creation of detective club, some kind of organization for crime writers. One of them got title Queen of Crime. It was Agatha  Christie who wrote dozens of novels. Literary critic Edmund Wilson panned the genre in his essay 'Who cares who killed Roger Ackroyd'. 

This period was called Golden Age of detective fiction and composed of many talented writers such as Josephine Tey, Edmund Crispin, Nicholas Blake and many others. Their stories were called cozy mysteries. One of them, G.K. Chesterton wrote an essay 'In defence of the detective story' where he argued that crime story is one of the oldest narratives and compared it to fairy tale.

Somewhere the same time in America rose new kind of crime fiction, called hard-boiled. Writers from that era published stories in pulp magazines such as Black Mask, and one stood out. It was Dashiell Hammett with his violent attitude. Soon followed Raymond Chandler, Cornel Wollrich, David Goodis, James M. Cain, James Ross, Jim Thompson, Ed McBain and perhaps most brilliant of all Ross McDonald. These novels were pretty rough and some of them got the label roman noir.

Italian author Umberto Eco said that crime fiction is most metaphysical of all genres.

Dashiell Hammett - The Glass Key

In my opinion best novel Hammett have written. It is essentialy about friendship between politician and his sidekick who helps him get rid of dirty laundry. Of course there is gorgeous dame involved in it.

Dashiell Hammett - The Dain Curse

One of the underrated Hammett novels, it tells a story about family madness that turns out to be false one, with numerous comic episodes and established hard-boiled stuff Hammett is known for.