Synopses & Reviews
andldquo;Iandrsquo;m in a business where people come to me with troubles. Big troubles, little troubles, but always troubles they donandrsquo;t want to take to the cops.andrdquo; Thatandrsquo;s Raymond Chandlerandrsquo;s Philip Marlowe, succinctly setting out our image of the private eye. A no-nonsense loner, working on the margins of society, working in the darkness to shine a little light.
and#160;
The reality is a little differentandmdash;but no less fascinating. In The Legendary Detective, John Walton offers a sweeping history of the American private detective in reality and myth, from the earliest agencies to the hard-boiled heights of the 1930s and andrsquo;40s. Drawing on previously untapped archival accounts of actual detective work, Walton traces both the growth of major private detective agencies like Pinkerton, which became powerful bulwarks against social and labor unrest, and the motley, unglamorous work of small-time operatives. He then goes on to show us how writers like Dashiell Hammett and editors of sensational pulp magazines like Black Mask embellished on actual experiences and fashioned an image of the PI as a compelling, even admirable, necessary evil, doing societyandrsquo;s dirty work while adhering to a self-imposed moral code. Scandals, public investigations, and regulations brought the boom years of private agencies to an end in the late 1930s, Walton explains, in the process fully cementing the shift from reality to fantasy.
and#160;
Today, as the private detective has long since given way to security services and armed guards, the myth of the lone PI remains as potent as ever. No fan of crime fiction or American history will want to miss The Legendary Detective.
Review
andquot;A fascinating account of the intersection of reality and fantasy, The Legendary Detective connects Dashiell Hammettand#39;s world of such fictional detectives as the Continental Op and Sam Spade to Samuel Hammettand#39;s (the same guy) experience of the real world of Pinkerton and Burns detectives working to break strikes and stir up political strife. Itand#39;s a penetrating story of the development of a contemporary legend via the interplay of the detective business and the culture industries which has lastingly influenced our understanding of urban life.andquot;
Review
andquot;Over nearly a century, a symbiotic relationship developed between detective practices and the popular culture industry that depicted them. The Legendary Detective is a masterly analysis of private detective work within the context of popular culture, revealing their interweaving and mutual influence. Mass-market literature made detective work look glamorous, which in turn provided a model and an incentive for memoirists like Alan Pinkerton, Charlie Siringo, and William J. Burns. Detectives wrote field and case reports that they and the home office polished and no doubt embellished to impress clients whose expectations were influenced by popular culture; fact and fiction blurred. Waltonand#39;s analysis is brilliant.andquot;
Synopsis
Private detectives and detective agencies played a major role in American history from 1870 to 1940.and#160; Pinkerton, Burns, Thiels, and the smaller independents were a multi-million dollar industry, hired out by many if not most American corporations, who needed services of surveillance, strike breaking, and labor espionage.and#160; Not only is John Waltonandrsquo;s account the first sustained history of this industry, it is also the first book to trace the ways in which the private detective came to occupy a cherished place in popular imagination.and#160; Walton paints lively portraits of these mythical figures from Sherlock Holmes, the brilliant eccentric, to Sam Spade, the hard-boiled hero of Dashiell Hammettandrsquo;s best-selling tales.and#160; Thereandrsquo;s a great question lurking in here:and#160; how did pulp magazine editors shape the image of the hard-boiled private eye, and what sorts of interplay obtained between the actual records (agency files, memoirs) of these motley individuals in real life and the legend of the private detective in mass-market fiction?and#160; This history of the private eyes and this account of how the detective industry and the culture industry played off of each other is a first.and#160; Walton show us, in clean clear outline, the figure of the classical private eye, and he shows us further how the memory of this iconic figure was sustained in fiction, radio, film, literary societies, product promotions, adolescent entertainments, and a subculture of detective enthusiasts.
Synopsis
I m in a business where people come to me with troubles. Big troubles, little troubles, but always troubles they don t want to take to the cops. That s Raymond Chandler s Philip Marlowe, succinctly setting out our image of the private eye. A no-nonsense loner, working on the margins of society, working in the darkness to shine a little light.
The reality is a little different but no less fascinating. In The Legendary Detective, John Walton offers a sweeping history of the American private detective in reality and myth, from the earliest agencies to the hard-boiled heights of the 1930s and 40s. Drawing on previously untapped archival accounts of actual detective work, Walton traces both the growth of major private detective agencies like Pinkerton, which became powerful bulwarks against social and labor unrest, and the motley, unglamorous work of small-time operatives. He then goes on to show us how writers like Dashiell Hammett and editors of sensational pulp magazines like Black Mask embellished on actual experiences and fashioned an image of the PI as a compelling, even admirable, necessary evil, doing society s dirty work while adhering to a self-imposed moral code. Scandals, public investigations, and regulations brought the boom years of private agencies to an end in the late 1930s, Walton explains, in the process fully cementing the shift from reality to fantasy.
Today, as the private detective has long since given way to security services and armed guards, the myth of the lone PI remains as potent as ever. No fan of crime fiction or American history will want to miss The Legendary Detective."
About the Author
John Walton is distinguished research professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis and the author of many books.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Story
1 Enter the Detective
2 Working Men and Women
3 Agency Business
4 Detectives at Work
5 Crimes of Detectives
6 Investigation and Reform
7 The Storied Detective
8 Making a Legend
Notes
Bibliography
Index