Dashiell Hammett. A Man Called Spade (1944)

Front and back of original paperback version.

  Dashiell Hammett. A Man Called Spade (1944) Reprint as trade paperback, with Introduction by Ellery Queen, who informs us that there are only four Sam Spade stories: The Maltese Falcon, and three short stories, which are included in this book. Two other Hammett stories add to the bulk, and make the book worth printing and publishing. The stories are reprinted in chronological order, and one can see Hammett’s skill improving, especially his skill at characterisation, and the last story, told in the first person by a boxer, is as much a character study as a crime story.
     Queen claims that this is what sets Hammett apart from other writers, especially the “effete, namby-pamby” English ones. Symons echoes Queen’s claim in his Bloody Murder. On the strength of the stories in this book that’s nonsense. Like other crime fiction authors, Hammett provides just enough characterisation to carry the plot. Like other escapist fiction writers, his aim is to sketch the outline of a character that the reader can fill in with his favourite traits: his own. As puzzles, these stories are weak, too; the solution provided by Spade is not deduced so much as invented. Queen is right to stress the “realism” of Sam Spade, by which he means his ordinariness and his taste for violence, but whether these make the character more realistic is debatable. I think the equation of realism with the dark side of human nature is just as romantic as its opposite.
     I also don’t see why Hammett is considered such a great stylist. The writing in the Spade stories is flat and tedious. The only interest is the plot, such as it is, and I for one don’t feel any urge to reread, not even “His Brother’s Keeper,” the only piece in which a character is realised fully, as fully as can be done a few thousand words, that is. Those who followed Hammett’s innovations took the style several steps further, and Symons claim that Ross MacDonald, for example, overwrites misses the mark. * (2003)

    Update 2020-10-22: Original paperback cover images added.