DASHIELL HAMMETT
ascinated by the arrest and execution of Mortimer, San Francisco Police Chief Thomas S. Duke included the case in his widely read 1910 history, Years later fictional detective Sam Spade keeps a copy of Duke’s book on his bedside table, and in the true story of Mortimer are traces of the author’s favorite hardboiled tropes—shadowing, betrayal, aliases, excessive violence and a toughas-nails hero.
