"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.
