The legendary detective
Subtitle: the private eye in fact and fiction
By: John Walton
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 219
ISBN-13: 9780226308265
Subjects: Private investigators; History
Description: ""I'm in a business where people come to me with troubles. Big troubles, little troubles, but always troubles they dont 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."--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-212) and index.
Table of contents: title: Enter the detective; title: Working men and women; title: Agency business; title: Detectives at work; title: Crimes of detectives; title: Investigation and reform; title: The storied detective; title: Making a legend.