Product Description

From Chinatown's dark alleys to the fog-shrouded Golden Gate, crooked politicians ran San Francisco. To Hammet, retired Pinkerton detective and struggling writer, it was all just grist to his fictional mill. Until the night his pal walked into a baseball bat. Then Hammett hung up his typewriter, put on his gumshoes and went out into the brawling, swaggering city to find the brutal murderer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #954935 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Joe Gores (1931--) was educated at Notre Dame University and Stanford University, served in the US Army, writing biographies of generals, and spent twelve years as a San Francisco private investigator. He is the author of the acclaimed DKA Files series and has written screenplays and television scripts. He has won three Edgar Allan Awards and Japan's Maltese Falcon Award.

Customer Reviews

In the best tradition of Hammett and Chandler
A wonderfully suspenseful novel that would make the real Dashiell Hammett proud. Gores did his homework well and it shows. I'm pleased to find that someone is carrying the torch for Hammett, and Chandler too. I've read all of their novels and this one rates right up there with the best. I look forward to the movie being released on DVD.

Standard Detecting, Good History, Weak Noir
I have an Orion Crime Masterworks paperback edition with a different cover than the one pictured.

First off, it struck me as somewhat pretentious to use Dashiell Hammett as the protagonist. I have read everything of Hammett's that I could get my hands on, and I was hoping for a skillful homage to the master. Unfortunately Gores' prose is not as tight or as precise, and his narrative not nearly as gritty. Even though this novel is much more explicit, more graphic than anything Hammett wrote, it still doesn't have the stark, mean, harsh quality that Hammett's fiction evokes. It lacks impact. Too soft.

It's not a BAD book; the story is satisfyingly elaborate, and in the grand tradition of detective fiction, the plot doesn't make sense until the end. You'll keep turning the pages to find out how it all fits together.

The book is peppered with regional & historical references that call undue attention to themselves. Gores makes a big deal of mentioning little details that Hammett would have taken for granted, and I got the impression he was showing off his research. It gets tiresome; it gets distracting. I wanted less set-dressing and more action.

The story would have worked better if the protagonist had just been some random gumshoe. Having it be Dashiell Hammett made me expect things that this book didn't deliver. Good enough as historical fiction, good enough as a detective story, but lacking that "something" that makes a novel truly Noir. And as a Dashiell Hammett homage, it falls flat.

First-Rate Detective Novel
No gimmick here. Gores has written, first and formost, the best hard-boiled detective novel I've read in a long time. The historical portrait of Hammett only makes it that much more endearing.