The Fictionalized Lives of Private Eye Writers & Other Folks
“I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.”
—Truman Capote
The blurry line between detective story writer and detective was already old hat by the time Hammett came along, but that hasn’t stopped other writers from ransacking the cherished memories of some of the late, great writers of the genre, and fictionalizing for their own purposes.
Sure, sometimes it’s done with love and respect, a sort of left-handed tribute. But other times? Well, not so much…
- Allan J. Pinkerton
By Eric Lerner, Michael P. Spradlin, Daniel Stashower, et al.
Of course, Pinkerton himself was the first to fictionalize his life, so it hardly seems worth getting upset to discover that other writers have done it too. - Dashiell Hammett
By Joe Gores, William F. Nolan, Ace Atkins, Owen Fitzstephen, Philip Wylie, Bernard A. Bergman et al.
Hammett almost certainly fudged his way through his March 1923 Smart Set piece, “From the Memoirs of a Private Detective,” which seems to have been a green light for subsequent fictional biographers to do with him what they would. - Raymond Chandler
By William Denbow, Hiber Conteris, Gaylord Larsen, William F. Nolan, Roger L. Simon, et al.
It’s a shame about Ray. This mostly private man’s been picked at and probed, and has rarely been cast in a favourable light. - Erle Stanley Gardner
By William F. Nolan
Part of Nolan’s Black Mask Boys series. - Raoul Whitfield
By Walter Satterthwait
So, did Whitfield bump off his rich wife? - Humphrey Bogart
By John Stanley & Kenn Davis
Murder is afoot, and Bogie, Peter Lorre and some guy named Chandler are on the case.
FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS
- The Smiling Corpse (1935) |Â Buy this book
By Philip Wylie and Bernard A. Bergman
A “first-rate satircal farce” (Time) in which Hammett and fellow mystery writers G.K. Chesterton, S.S. Van Dine and Sax Rohmer “find themselves in a murder.” - The Black Mask Boys
By William F. Nolan
Nolan went where no man had gone before, fictionalized not one, not two, but THREE of the all-time great detective story writers: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gardner. - The Inklings Detective Agency (2026)  | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
By John R. Kelly
Set in 1930s England, this series launch answers the question: “What if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, C.S. Lewis and J.R. Tolkien formed a detective agency, and asked Agatha Christie and D.L. Sayers for help?” Which begs the question: “Who asked?”
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
