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The Glass Key

On sale

14th September 2014

Price: £9.99

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Selected: ebook / ISBN-13: 9781471917714

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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.

Reviews

SCOTSMAN
One of the foremost practitioners of the hard-boiled detective story
James Ellroy
Great crime fiction started with Hammett
INDEPENDENT
His name remains one of the most important and recognisable in the crime fiction genre. Hammett set the standard for much of the work that would follow
BOSTON GLOBE
He is master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer
Raymond Chandler
He put these people down on paper as they are, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used
NEW YORK TIMES
The dean of the school of hard-boiled fiction
THE TIMES
Not just the first of the tough school of crime-writing but the best