Hammett’s later life was marked in part by ill health, alcoholism, a period of imprisonment related to his alleged membership in the Communist Party, and by his long-time companion, the author Lillian Hellman, with whom he had a very volatile relationship. During World War II, Hammett again served as sergeant in the Army, this time for more than two years, most of which he spent in the Aleutians. Red Harvest (1929), The Dain Curse (1929), and The Glass Key (1931) are among his most successful novels. The Thin Man (1932) offered another immortal sleuth, Nick Charles. In The Maltese Falcon (1930) he first introduced his famous private eye, Sam Spade. He soon turned to writing, and in the late 1920s Hammett became the unquestioned master of detective-story fiction in America. When Sergeant Hammett was discharged from the last of several hospitals, he resumed detective work. Sleuthing suited young Hammett, but World War I intervened, interrupting his work and injuring his health. Hammett left school at the age of fourteen and held several kinds of jobs thereafter-messenger boy, newsboy, clerk, operator, and stevedore, finally becoming an operative for Pinkerton’s Detective Agency.
He grew up in Philadelphia and Baltimore.
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