Free The Lost Detective by Nathan Ward Page A

happily surrounded by boxes of detecting paraphernalia: crumbling codebooks, posters for missing outlaws, and op reports of nineteenth-century violence captured in disconcertingly beautiful script.
    Ellen Crain, archives director at the handsome Butte–Silver Bow Public Archives, was expertly helpful with research about the Frank Little killing, local miner history, and Hammett’s possible experiences in that fascinating town. The people at Second Edition Books in Butte were also helpful, and patient with my questions; they recommended a few useful works of Montana history. Laura Wellen and Paul A. Gansky assisted with my research queries at the Harry Ransom archives at the University of Texas, Austin. New York University’s Bobst Library offered its microfilmed collection of newspapers and some old detectives’ books in its Special Collections department, while the Brooklyn Historical Society luckily had a copy of the family history of the Dashiells.
    Dashiell Hammett seemed to lay around our house like a visiting uncle during the last few years, and it is no small tribute to my wonderful kids how they cheerfully carried on despite the heaps of books my worldly guest left about the place, only occasionally asking how much longer he would be with us. I thank my children, Nick and Nina, for their support, and I am ever grateful to my wife, Katie Calhoun, for her love and patience and for bringing me into her family, the Calhouns, who introduced me to Montana. Katie’s oldest sister, Patty Calhoun,ambassador to all things Western, also deserves special thanks for several Hammett-related excursions we made to Butte and Anaconda.
    This book started with a lunch that my agent and friend Ed Breslin arranged with George Gibson, publisher at Bloomsbury USA. George immediately saw the potential in the idea of a Hammett-as-detective book, and the proposal followed from the lunch group’s excited discussion. My profound thanks go to these two literary men for the book’s civilized beginnings, and to George for his patience, sharp edits, and enthusiastic counsel as it took shape.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
    Asbury, Herbert. The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld . New York: Garden City Publishing, 1933.
    Barry, John M. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History . New York: Penguin, 2004.
    Blum, Howard. Dark Invasion. 1915: Germany’s Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America . New York: HarperCollins, 2014.
    Burnett, W. R. Little Caesar . New York: Avon, 1945. First published 1929 by Dial Press.
    Chandler, Raymond. The Simple Art of Murder . New York: Vintage Crime, 1988.
    ——. Trouble Is My Business . New York: Vintage Crime, 1992.
    Dashiell, Benjamin Jones. Dashiell Family Records , Vols. 1–3. Baltimore, MD: B. H. Dashiell, 1928–1932.
    Dillon, Richard H. Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown . Fairfield and Vacaville: JSP Pub, 1962.
    Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The Valley of Fear . New York: Berkley Publishing, 1915.
    Edwords, Clarence E. Bohemian San Francisco: Its Restaurants and Their Most Famous Recipes . San Francisco, CA: Paul Elder and Company, 1914.
    Fenton, Charles A. The Apprenticeship of Ernest Hemingway: The Early Years . New York: Viking, 1954.
    Friedman, Morris. The Pinkerton Labor Spy . Chatsworth, CA: Wilshire Book Co., 1907.
    Glasscock, C. B. The War of the Copper Kings . Helena, MT: Riverbend Publications, 2002. First published 1935 by The Bobbs-Merrill Co.
    Hammett, Dashiell. The Big Knockover . New York: Vintage Crime, 1989.
    ——. Blood Money . New York: Dell, 1947.
    ——. The Continental Op . New York: Dell, 1945.
    ——. The Continental Op . Edited by Steven Marcus. New York: Vintage, 1992.
    ——. The Dain Curse . New York: Vintage, 1989.
    ——. Dashiell Hammett: Selected Letters, 1921-1960 . Edited by Richard Layman, and Julie M. Rivett. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2001.
    ——.