Dashiell Hammett was an American author of detective crime fiction and short stories. As a young man he started his career at the Pinkerton Detective Agency as an operative. Hammett wrote most of his fiction while living in San Francisco in the 1920’s using street locations and characters based on people he knew personally. He is currently known as the dean of the “hard-boiled” school of detective fiction. Although his short writing career included 5 novels, 54 short stories, 18 published collections of short stories and 4 screenplays, his most popular and memorable characters are Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse).–Wikipedia.