Raymond Chandler said of Dashiell Hammett that he “took murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley”. Hammett transformed the genres of mystery and crime fiction, replacing exotic locales with sleazy city streets and the oddball detective with the hard boiled private eye. Drawing inspiration from his own life, he brought a gritty verisimilitude to the mystery genre, and his influence has scarcely faded since.
“Arson Plus” was originally published in 1923 in the pulp magazine Black Mask, and was the world’s introduction to the Continental Op—the anonymous hero who helped to launch a thousand hardboiled followers.
Dashiell Hammettwas a novelist and short-story writer whose works helped develop the detective genre into what it is today. HIs most celebrated works include The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, and The Glass Key. Hammett heavily impacted the detective genre, using sharp dialogue and gritty characters to move away from traditional mysteries and towards a more psychologically complex style.
Hammett originally worked as a detective for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency before turning to writing. His previous experiences with detective work greatly influenced his writing, and his stories gained widespread popularity through pulp magazines such as Black Mask.
