Forum Overview :: Peter Molyneux's The Movies :: I love Hammett. An actual real-life PI turned author, his writing rings true.

[quote name="Mischief Maker"]The thing so many of his copycats missed about the hard-drinking private eye stereotype he created, wasn't that the drinking was due to machismo or trauma. It's because his stories take place during prohibition. All the scenes where his PIs have a drink with the cops, are a cynical look at the hypocrisies of the prototype drug war. In fact in The Dain Curse, when his nameless protagonist The Continental Op is in a new town and needs to score some booze, he asks his contacts in the local police department who casually tell him the elevator boy in the police station will hook him up, an anecdote I'm sure came from real-life.[/quote]