The Glass Key features Ned Beaumont, who is tall, lean, mustachioed, tubercular, and a gambler – like his creator. He is not a detective, but a political fixer for construction magnate Paul Madvig, probably in Baltimore. The toughest of Hammett’s heroes, he is the ten-minute egg of the genre. This quality springs partly from his lack of “luck,” a Depression-era belief that the novel probes, and partly from his defense of his minimal idealism from political corruption.
When Beaumont finds the body of Senator Henry’s son, Madvig asks him to thwart the D.A.’s investigation sure to follow. Beaumont wants to “sink” the corrupt senator, but Madvig backs him and wants to marry his daughter, Janet. Beaumont, needing to reverse his luck, goes to New York City to collect a gambling debt, but gets beaten up. Meanwhile someone sends a series of letters to people close to the crime, hinting that Madvig […]
Original post by Amanda