Dashiell Hammett's strangest and most personal work.

Corruption, murder, beauty and innocence . . . 'Great crime fiction started with Hammett' James Ellroy

'Not just the first of the tough school of crime-writing but the best' THE TIMES

Ned Beaumont is a tall, thin, moustache-wearing, TB-ridden, drinking, gambling, hanger-on to the political boss of a corrupt Eastern city.

Nevertheless, like every Hammett hero (and like Hammett himself), he has an unbreakable, if idiosyncratic, moral code. Ned's boss wants to better himself with a thoroughbred senator's daughter; but does he want it badly enough to commit murder? If he's innocent, who wants him in the frame? Beaumont must find out.

"Not just the first of the tough school of crime-writing but the best" - THE TIMES

"He is master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer" - BOSTON GLOBE

"His name remains one of the most important and recognisable in the crime fiction genre. Hammett set the standard for much of the work that would follow" - INDEPENDENT

"The dean of the school of hard-boiled fiction" - NEW YORK TIMES

"One of the foremost practitioners of the hard-boiled detective story" - SCOTSMAN