(1894–1961)
a US novelist who wrote tough crime stories of the kind that are sometimes referred to as ‘hard-boiled fiction’. He had a great influence on Raymond Chandler and other writers. Hammett created the character Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1930) and the humorous couple Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1932). These books and many of his others were made into films. Hammett was sent to prison in the 1950s when he refused to say if he was a Communist.
See also McCarthy (II).