Corruption, murder, beauty and innocence . . . ‘Great crime fiction started with Hammett’ James Ellroy
‘Not just the first of the tough school of crime-writing but the best’ THE TIMES
Ned Beaumont is a tall, thin, moustache-wearing, TB-ridden, drinking, gambling, hanger-on to the political boss of a corrupt Eastern city.
Nevertheless, like every Hammett hero (and like Hammett himself), he has an unbreakable, if idiosyncratic, moral code. Ned’s boss wants to better himself with a thoroughbred senator’s daughter; but does he want it badly enough to commit murder? If he’s innocent, who wants him in the frame? Beaumont must find out.
‘Not just the first of the tough school of crime-writing but the best’ THE TIMES
Ned Beaumont is a tall, thin, moustache-wearing, TB-ridden, drinking, gambling, hanger-on to the political boss of a corrupt Eastern city.
Nevertheless, like every Hammett hero (and like Hammett himself), he has an unbreakable, if idiosyncratic, moral code. Ned’s boss wants to better himself with a thoroughbred senator’s daughter; but does he want it badly enough to commit murder? If he’s innocent, who wants him in the frame? Beaumont must find out.