If you enjoy shows like The Wire or True Detective, or film noir, there's one guy you can thank for that: Dashiell Hammett. He was a writer in the 1920s-1940s, and he is the guy who created the modern detective. He took the entire genre into the modern era. And Hammett was able to do this because he was in fact a detective for the Pinkerton agency before becoming a writer. My guest today, Nathan Ward, has written a book called The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett. We discuss how Hammett's experience paved the way for the modern American detective in entertainment.
