Locked rooms - Laurie R. King [176]
To Abby Bridge, researcher extraordinaire, and the collections of the California Historical Society, the San Francisco Public Library, and the Mechanics' Institute Library; Don Herron, who knows all things Hammett; and Stu Bennett, who uncovered some insider's guides to the City.
Although none of the biographies of Dashiell Hammett I found, including that written by his daughter, Jo Hammett (Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers), mention this extraordinary meeting of minds in the spring of 1924, from all I can see, Miss Russell captures the man's essence, from the dapper clothes and weak lungs to the man's robust sense of ethics. It should be noted, regarding Hammett's disinclination to sell out his employer in this story, that this desperately ill, lifelong claustrophobe, an old man at the age of fifty-seven, spent twenty-two weeks in federal prison during the Red-baiting fifties because he refused to give up the names of men who had trusted him. As Lillian Hellman said in the eulogy of her longtime lover (which can be found in Diane Johnson's excellent Dashiell Hammett, A Life) Hammett submitted to prison because “he had come to the conclusion that a man should keep his word.”
No small goal for any of us.
About the Author
LAURIE R. KING became the first novelist since Patricia Cornwell to win prizes for Best First Crime Novel on both sides of the Atlantic with the publication of her debut thriller, A Grave Talent. She is the bestselling author of four contemporary novels featuring Kate Martinelli, eight Mary Russell mysteries, and bestselling novels A Darker Place, Folly, and Keeping Watch. She lives in northern California.
Other Mystery Novels by
LAURIE R. KING
Mary Russell Novels
The Beekeeper's Apprentice
A Monstrous Regiment of Women
A Letter of Mary
The Moor
O Jerusalem
Justice Hall
The Game
Kate Martinelli Novels
A Grave Talent
To Play the Fool
With Child
Night Work
And
A Darker Place
Folly
Keeping Watch
LOCKED ROOMS
A Bantam Book / July 2005
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2005 by Laurie R. King
Bantam Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and
the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher.
eISBN: 0-553-90159-1
Published simultaneously in Canada
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