HAMMETT

Dashiell Hammett worked for the Pinkerton Agency as a private investigator and one of his cases was silent film star Fatty Arbuckle’s alleged rape of Virginia Rappe, an aspiring actress who died from a ruptured bladder two days later. Although Arbuckle was acquitted, his career never recovered. Hammett, however, went on to become one of the greatest hard-boiled detective pulp fiction novelists and film noir screenplay writers of all-time.