Selected Letters Of Dashiell Hammett 1921 1960

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Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett: 1921-1960

Author : Dashiell Hammett
Publisher : Counterpoint
ISBN 13 : 9781582432106
Total Pages : 692 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (321 download)

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Book Synopsis Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett: 1921-1960 by : Dashiell Hammett

Download or read book Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett: 1921-1960 written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Counterpoint. This book was released on 2002-04-25 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A selection from the letters of Dashiell Hammett, the American writer of crime fiction. Here is Hammett the family man, distant but devoted; Hammett the student of politics, scanning the headlines from a Marxist perspective; and Hammett the lover of Lillian Hellman, delighting in her style, humour, accomplishments, but maintaining his independence. Celebrity, soldier, activist, survivor--these letters show how Hammett was each of these in turn, but was always, above all, a writer.

Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett: 1921-1960

Author : Dashiell Hammett
Publisher : Catapult
ISBN 13 : 1582432104
Total Pages : 688 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (824 download)

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Book Synopsis Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett: 1921-1960 by : Dashiell Hammett

Download or read book Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett: 1921-1960 written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2002-04-25 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A selection from the letters of Dashiell Hammett, the American writer of crime fiction. Here is Hammett the family man, distant but devoted; Hammett the student of politics, scanning the headlines from a Marxist perspective; and Hammett the lover of Lillian Hellman, delighting in her style, humour, accomplishments, but maintaining his independence. Celebrity, soldier, activist, survivor--these letters show how Hammett was each of these in turn, but was always, above all, a writer.

The Novels of Dashiell Hammett

Author : Dashiell Hammett
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 748 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Novels of Dashiell Hammett by : Dashiell Hammett

Download or read book The Novels of Dashiell Hammett written by Dashiell Hammett and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page 748 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains five of Hammett's novels, four of which were transformed into motion pictures. His stories of unmatched suspense are exciting and well plotted and portray the corruptions in American society and the undercurrent of violence that runs through American life. ISBN 0-394-43860-4 : $19.95.

Lillian Hellman

Author : Deborah Martinson
Publisher : Catapult
ISBN 13 : 1582437238
Total Pages : 481 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (824 download)

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Book Synopsis Lillian Hellman by : Deborah Martinson

Download or read book Lillian Hellman written by Deborah Martinson and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few literary celebrities have lived with more abandon and under a brighter spotlight than Lillian Hellman. Even fewer have been doubted as absolutely as Hellman, famously denounced by rival Mary McCarthy. Attacked by critics and idealized by admirers, Hellman's determination to control and manipulate her image helped make her a figure of unknowable half–truths and rumors. Until now. Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels is the first biography of the iconoclastic playwright written with the full cooperation of her family, friends, and inner circle. Deborah Martinson moves beyond the myths around Hellman and finds the sassy, outrageous woman committed to writing, to politics, and to having her say. Martinson's research—through interviews, archives, recently declassified CIA files, and her unprecedented access to Hellman's confidants—paints the most complete, and surprisingly admiring, portrait of this remarkable writer that we've ever had. Distinctly American—a New Orleans Jew with one foot in Manhattan and one in Hollywood, a writer whose experience spanned the Great Depression, the Cold War, and the Nixon years—Hellman lives again in this riveting biography, facing the world with wit, truth, lies, and chutzpah.

Legal Stories

Author : Gregory Steirer
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
ISBN 13 : 047222171X
Total Pages : 327 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (722 download)

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Book Synopsis Legal Stories by : Gregory Steirer

Download or read book Legal Stories written by Gregory Steirer and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2024-07-01 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing the emergence of what the media industries today call transmedia, story worlds, and narrative franchises, Legal Stories provides a dual history of copyright law and narrative-based media development between the Copyright Act of 1909 and the Copyright Act of 1976. Drawing on archival material, including legal case files, and employing the principles of actor-network theory, Gregory Steirer demonstrates how the meaning and form of narrative-based property in the twentieth century was integral to the letter and practice of intellectual property law during this time. Steirer’s expansive view of intellectual property law encompasses not only statutes and judicial opinions, but also the everyday practices and productions of authors, editors, fans, and other legal laypersons. The result is a history of the law as improvisatory and accident-prone, taking place as often outside the courtroom as inside, and shaped as much by laypersons as lawyers. Through the examination of influential legal disputes involving early properties such as Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, and Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, Steirer provides a ground’s eye view of how copyright law has operated and evolved in practice.

Green Ice

Author : Raoul Whitfield
Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 149766408X
Total Pages : 189 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (976 download)

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Book Synopsis Green Ice by : Raoul Whitfield

Download or read book Green Ice written by Raoul Whitfield and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-08-26 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this Golden Age noir classic, a falsely convicted man is released from prison only to find he’s being framed for multiple murders In the 1930s, when pulp magazines like Black Mask reigned and noir fiction was in its heyday, mystery author Raoul Whitfield ranked with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler as one of the genre’s heavy hitters. Widely acknowledged by those in the know as a pioneer of hard-boiled detective fiction, Whitfield wrote action-packed tales of murder and mayhem that noir aficionados adored. His debut novel, Green Ice, is considered by many to be his masterpiece. Mal Ourney has spent the last two years in Sing Sing for a crime he didn’t commit, taking the rap for a lady friend whose carelessness behind the wheel resulted in someone else’s death. Always a champion of the underdog, Mal has done his time quietly and without complaint while lending a sympathetic ear to the small timers who were unwittingly led into a life of crime by big-time, low-life gangsters. Now that he’s a free man, Mal’s got a plan to make the big guys pay. But he’s barely stepped through the prison gates when people in his life start dying, beginning with his ex-girlfriend. It seems someone is determined to frame Mal Ourney, and it has to do with a missing cache of priceless emeralds. Now the innocent ex-con will have to do some fancy footwork if he hopes to sidestep the electric chair. This ebook includes an introduction by Boris Dralyuk.

The Virgin Kills

Author : Raoul Whitfield
Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 1480444499
Total Pages : 205 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis The Virgin Kills by : Raoul Whitfield

Download or read book The Virgin Kills written by Raoul Whitfield and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-08-26 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A killer stalks the guests of an eccentric millionaire at a Hudson River boating event in this classic thriller from one of the unsung masters of early noir mystery In the years between the world wars, in the heyday of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Leslie Charteris, Raoul Whitfield was a mystery author to be reckoned with. Considered by many to be more realistic than his famous contemporaries, Whitfield wrote gripping tales of murder and mayhem, full of unanticipated twists and turns. His work was often featured in Black Mask, the legendary mystery magazine of the 1930s. The time is ripe to rediscover one of the godfathers of noir fiction. The guests of millionaire gambler Eric Vennel are gathered on their eccentric host’s yacht, Virgin, speeding north up the Hudson River toward the Poughkeepsie Regatta, a renowned collegiate competition of boating skill. The crew on board is a motley one, including a famous Hollywood starlet, an acclaimed author, a sports writer, some society swells, a well-known aviator, a gossip columnist, and a hard-boiled newspaper reporter. Vennel is said to have a lot of money riding on this race. There is also speculation that someone wants him dead, which is why an underworld thug has been brought along to serve as the rich man’s bodyguard. Neither the rumors nor the thug is doing much to alleviate the already considerable tension. And the questionable demise of a favored regatta competitor only heightens the sense of unease. It seems there may indeed be a killer among them—a suspicion that is emphatically confirmed when, one by one, the passengers of the Virgin begin to die. This ebook includes an introduction by Boris Dralyuk.

Death in a Bowl

Author : Raoul Whitfield
Publisher : Overamstel Uitgevers
ISBN 13 : 904998004X
Total Pages : 204 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (499 download)

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Book Synopsis Death in a Bowl by : Raoul Whitfield

Download or read book Death in a Bowl written by Raoul Whitfield and published by Overamstel Uitgevers. This book was released on 2014-08-26 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this gripping classic thriller from the Golden Age of noir, tough-as-nails PI Ben Jardinn investigates the bizarre murder of an orchestra conductor in front of thousands of witnesses at the Hollywood Bowl From his Hollywood office just steps away from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, hard-drinking private investigator Ben Jardinn keeps his finger firmly on the pulse of Tinseltown. So when an orchestra conductor is shot dead in front of twenty thousand pairs of eyes at the famed Hollywood Bowl, Jardinn is intrigued—especially since two of the prime suspects came to ask for his help before the murder even occurred. However, tracking down the truth won’t be easy since it seems no one’s word can be trusted—not even that of the PI’s closest colleagues. And the trail to a killer and a motive twists into dark and unexpected places where even a tough, streetwise detective may find it difficult to stay alive. A pioneer of hard-boiled 1930s detective fiction, Raoul Whitfield created some of the genre’s most intriguing stories and characters, many of which were featured in Black Mask, a legendary pulp magazine of the era. A contemporary of Dashiell Hammett—as well as his drinking buddy—Whitfield enjoyed success on par with Hammett’s during his lifetime. But while the works of mystery writers like Hammett and Raymond Chandler have been immortalized in print and on the movie screen, for decades Whitfield’s action-packed tales of betrayal, revenge, greed, and murder were largely ignored—an injustice that is now being rectified to the delight of noir fiction aficionados everywhere. This ebook includes an introduction by Boris Dralyuk.

Moving Targets

Author : Margaret Atwood
Publisher : House of Anansi
ISBN 13 : 9780887847356
Total Pages : 440 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (473 download)

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Book Synopsis Moving Targets by : Margaret Atwood

Download or read book Moving Targets written by Margaret Atwood and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 2005 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most precious treasure of this collection is that it gives us the rich back-story and diverse range of influences on Margaret Atwood's work. From the aunts who encouraged her nascent writing career to the influence of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four on The Handmaid's Tale, we trace the movement of Atwood's fertile and curious mind in action over the years.Atwood's controversial political pieces, Napoleon's Two Biggest Mistakes and Letter to America -- both not-so-veiled warnings about the repercussions of the war in Iraq -- also appear, alongside pieces that exhibit her active concern for the environment, the North, and the future of the human race. Atwood also writes about her peers: John Updike, Marina Warner, Italo Calvino, Marian Engel, Toni Morrison, Angela Carter, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mordecai Richler, Elmore Leonard, and Ursula Le Guin.This is a landmark volume from a major writer whose worldwide readership is in the millions, and whose work has influenced and entertained generations. Moving Targets is the companion volume to Second Words.

The Lost Detective

Author : Nathan Ward
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1632862778
Total Pages : 211 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (328 download)

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Book Synopsis The Lost Detective by : Nathan Ward

Download or read book The Lost Detective written by Nathan Ward and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 2016 Edgar Award Nominee Before he became a household name in America as perhaps our greatest hard-boiled crime writer, before his attachment to Lillian Hellman and blacklisting during the McCarthy era, and his subsequent downward spiral, Dashiell Hammett led a life of action. Born in 1894 into a poor Maryland family, Hammett left school at fourteen and held several jobs before joining the Pinkerton National Detective Agency as an operative in 1915 and, with time off in 1918 to serve at the end of World War I, he remained with the agency until 1922, participating alike in the banal and dramatic action of an operative. The tuberculosis he contracted during the war forced him to leave the Pinkertons--but it may well have prompted one of America's most acclaimed writing careers. While Hammett's life on center stage has been well-documented, the question of how he got there has not. That largely overlooked phase is the subject of Nathan Ward's enthralling The Lost Detective. Hammett's childhood, his life in San Francisco, and especially his experience as a detective deeply informed his writing and his characters, from the nameless Continental Op, hero of his stories and early novels, to Sam Spade and Nick Charles. The success of his many stories in the pulp magazine Black Mask following his departure from the Pinkertons led him to novels; he would write five between 1929 and 1934, two of them (The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man) now American classics. Though he inspired generations of writers, from Chandler to Connelly and all in between, after The Thin Man he never finished another book, a painful silence for his devoted readers; and his popular image has long been shaped by the remembrance of Hellman, who knew him after his literary reputation had been made. Based on original research across the country, The Lost Detective is the first book to illuminate Hammett's transformation from real detective to great American detective writer, throwing brilliant new light on one of America's most celebrated and remembered novelists and his world.

Dashiell Hammett

Author : Sally Cline
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1628723785
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (287 download)

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Book Synopsis Dashiell Hammett by : Sally Cline

Download or read book Dashiell Hammett written by Sally Cline and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dashiell Hammett changed the face of crime fiction. In five novels published over five years as well as a string of stories, he transformed the mystery genre into literature and left us with the figure of the hard-boiled detective, from the Continental Op to Sam Spade—immortalized on film by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon—and the more glamorous Thin Man, also made iconic with the aid of Hollywood. A brilliant writer, Hammett was a complex and enigmatic man. After 1934 until his death in 1961, he published no more novels and suffered from a writer’s block that both shamed and maimed him. He is identified with his tough protagonists, but his tuberculosis compromised his masculine identity and alcoholism may have been his answer. A former Pinkerton detective who valued honesty, he was attracted to women who lied outrageously, most notably Lillian Hellman, with whom he conducted a thirty-year affair. A controversial political activist who stood up for civil liberty, he was also a very private man. In this compact new biography, Sally Cline uses fresh research, including interviews with Hammett’s family and Hellman’s heir, to reexamine the life and works of the writer whom Raymond Chandler called “the ace performer.”

Discovering the Maltese Falcon and Sam Spade

Author : Richard Layman
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Discovering the Maltese Falcon and Sam Spade by : Richard Layman

Download or read book Discovering the Maltese Falcon and Sam Spade written by Richard Layman and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Dashiell Hammett's novel The Maltese Falcon is often named as one of the best twentieth-century novels. John Huston's film adaptation is one of the earliest examples of film noir. It made Humphrey Bogart a star, and was selected by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 greatest movies of all time. Now, Discovering The Maltese Falcon and Sam Spade uncovers from institutional and private archives a wealth of treasures about Hammett's masterpiece, his detective Sam Spade, the three film versions of the novel, stage adaptations, Sam Spade short stories, radio presentations, and even comics. Many of the discoveries here are previously unpublished. The book provides hundreds of rare documents and original source materials, including production notes for the three movie versions. Contributors include Dashiell Hammett himself, plus Jo Hammett, Richard Layman, Mary Astor, Joseph Shaw, Dorothy Parker, John Huston, Hal Wallis, Darryl F. Zanuck, Joe Gores, William F. Nolan, and more than fifty additional writers. It is illustrated with more than 200 photos, illustrations, and facsimiles. The book is a joy for fans of Hammett, Sam Spade, detective fiction, film noir, and the history of literature and cinema."--Publisher's website.

The Big Book of the Continental Op

Author : Dashiell Hammett
Publisher : Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
ISBN 13 : 0525432957
Total Pages : 754 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (254 download)

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Book Synopsis The Big Book of the Continental Op by : Dashiell Hammett

Download or read book The Big Book of the Continental Op written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now for the first time ever in one volume, all twenty-eight stories and two serialized novels starring the Continental Op—one of the greatest characters in storied history of detective fiction. Dashiell Hammett is the father of modern hard-boiled detective stories. His legendary works have been lauded for almost one hundred years by fans, and his novel The Maltese Falcon was adapted into a classic film starring Humphrey Bogart. One of Dashiell Hammett's most memorable characters, the Continental Op made his debut in Black Mask magazine on October 1, 1923, narrating the first of twenty-eight stories and two novels that would change forever the face of detective fiction. The Op is a tough, wry, unglamorous gumshoe who has inspired a following that is both global and enduring. He has been published in periodicals, paperback digests, and short story collections, but until now, he has never, in all his ninety-two years, had the whole of his exploits contained in one book. The book features all twenty-eight of the original standalone Continental Op stories, the original serialized versions of Red Harvest and The Dain Curse, and previously unpublished material. This anthology of Continental Op stories is the only complete, one-volume work of its kind.

West of Guam

Author : Raoul Whitfield
Publisher : Overamstel Uitgevers
ISBN 13 : 9049980635
Total Pages : 678 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (499 download)

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Book Synopsis West of Guam by : Raoul Whitfield

Download or read book West of Guam written by Raoul Whitfield and published by Overamstel Uitgevers. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-four stories starring one of the most unique pulp detectives of all time In a hot, cramped office not far from the Pasig River, an ingenious investigator waits for clients. Younger than he appears, with gray hair and squinting eyes, he is Jo Gar, the half-Filipino Island Detective whose intuition makes him one of the sharpest sleuths in either hemisphere. From the back alleys of Manila to the docks of San Francisco, he tracks killers, unmasks liars, and outwits thieves. Although he appears harmless, this tropical PI is not afraid to pull a knife or squeeze the trigger on his army-issue Colt .45. Based on Raoul Whitfield’s childhood experiences in the Philippines, Jo Gar is a rarity of his era: an Asian sleuth who defies the stereotypes of Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan. Gar is one of the most brilliant creations ever to step from the pages of Black Mask.

The Cambridge Companion to American Novelists

Author : Timothy Parrish
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107495725
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cambridge Companion to American Novelists by : Timothy Parrish

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to American Novelists written by Timothy Parrish and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Companion examines the full range and vigor of the American novel. From the American exceptionalism of James Fenimore Cooper to the apocalyptic post-Americanism of Cormac McCarthy, these newly commissioned essays from leading scholars and critics chronicle the major aesthetic innovations that have shaped the American novel over the past two centuries. The essays evaluate the work, life and legacy of influential American novelists including Melville, Twain, James, Wharton, Cather, Faulkner, Ellison, Pynchon and Morrison, while situating them within the context of their literary predecessors and successors. The volume also highlights less familiar, though equally significant writers such as Theodore Dreiser and Djuna Barnes, providing a balanced and wide-ranging survey of use to students, teachers and general readers of American literature.

Reading Early Hammett

Author : LeRoy Lad Panek
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 9780786419623
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (196 download)

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Book Synopsis Reading Early Hammett by : LeRoy Lad Panek

Download or read book Reading Early Hammett written by LeRoy Lad Panek and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2004-09-08 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dashiell Hammett, like most successful writers, honed his skills in the trenches. Long before The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man made him a household name, Hammett developed his technique writing satirical magazine pieces, then moved on to churn out tales of sex, crime and adventure for pulp magazines. Characters like Sam Spade and Nick and Nora Charles made him famous, but Hammett perfected his style--and created the first hard-boiled detective fiction--writing stories and novels about an anonymous, middle-aged detective, known as the Continental Op. This detailed examination of the early works of Dashiell Hammett takes a new look at one of the 20th century's most influential crime writers and his creation of the hard-boiled detective story. Each chapter covers an element of Hammett's early writing career--his magazine fiction; the Continental Op's development as a character; the Continental Op novels; and the last Continental Op stories. A concluding chapter provides afterthoughts on Hammett's career, style and place in the history of detective fiction. A chronology of works cited, a bibliography and an index supplement the text.

Perplexing Plots

Author : David Bordwell
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231556551
Total Pages : 558 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Perplexing Plots by : David Bordwell

Download or read book Perplexing Plots written by David Bordwell and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-17 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Narrative innovation is typically seen as the domain of the avant-garde. However, techniques such as nonlinear timelines, multiple points of view, and unreliable narration have long been part of American popular culture. How did forms and styles once regarded as “difficult” become familiar to audiences? In Perplexing Plots, David Bordwell reveals how crime fiction, plays, and films made unconventional narrative mainstream. He shows that since the nineteenth century, detective stories and suspense thrillers have allowed ambitious storytellers to experiment with narrative. Tales of crime and mystery became a training ground where audiences learned to appreciate artifice. These genres demand a sophisticated awareness of storytelling conventions: they play games with narrative form and toy with audience expectations. Bordwell examines how writers and directors have pushed, pulled, and collaborated with their audiences to change popular storytelling. He explores the plot engineering of figures such as Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Patricia Highsmith, Alfred Hitchcock, Dorothy Sayers, and Quentin Tarantino, and traces how mainstream storytellers and modernist experimenters influenced one another’s work. A sweeping, kaleidoscopic account written in a lively, conversational style, Perplexing Plots offers an ambitious new understanding of how movies, literature, theater, and popular culture have evolved over the past century.