Dashiell Hammett
"Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that
commit it for reasons."
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler described Hammet's writing style in The Simple Art of Murder:
"Hammett wrote... for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay them; it was right down their street. Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse ... He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes. "
BOOKS