***Not Sam Spade- Dashiell Hammett’s Woman In The Dark  

 

 

Book Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

Woman In The Dark, Dashiell Hammett, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1933

Sure, everybody knows, or at least everybody used to know, Dashiell Hammett’s classic prototypical hard-boil detective Sam Spade from his The Maltese Falcon. Hammett along with Raymond Chandler and his Philip Marlowe series of crime novels set the then modern day expression of what a literary detective should look like in comparison with the old parlor detectives. Others may recall a different style with the suave and sophisticated husband and wife pair of Nick and Nora Charles (okay with Asta too) of his last crime novel, The Thin Man (which led to a cinematic series with William Powell and Myra Loy). The novel under review, Woman In The Dark, was written just prior to that one and although it has no rough-hewn or suave detectives to save the day it did have an effect on that last novel. At least according to Robert Parker in his introduction here.        

This plotline is fairly simple although the same terse language and powerful physical and geographical descriptions of the more famous crime novels is still in evident. An ex-con, Steve, just out of the can becomes involved with a “woman of the night,” Luise, in a small town which is “owned” by some local Mayfair swell. The woman is a “guest” of that Mayfair swell but when he plays rough she decides to split. And winds up on Steve’s doorstep. Well said Mayfair swell took umbrage and went looking for her, found her, and set Steve up for another tumble in stir. Steve is not buying that, not buying Luise’s apparent fate as mapped out by our swell, and is handy enough to do something about it. Take a charge at a few windmills for a damsel in distress. Hey this theme sounds familiar is this guy kin to Sam Spade?