Samuel Dashiell Hammett was the architect of American "hard-boiled" fiction, a writer who took the detective novel out of the drawing room and onto the mean streets of reality. Before he became a literary icon, Hammett worked as an operative for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency—an experience that provided the gritty, firsthand authenticity that defines his work. Breaking away from the polite, puzzle-solving traditions of British mysteries, Hammett introduced a new kind of hero: cynical, tough-minded, and governed by a private code of ethics in a corrupt world. His prose, stripped of all unnecessary ornament, is as sharp and cold as a straight razor.