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Sample of authors
Macdonald, Ross
Ross Macdonald is a pseudonym for the American-Canadian crime writer Kenneth Millar. He was born in Los Gatos, California, but he grew up in his parents’ native Canada. His parents divorced shortly after the family moved there, and during childhood Macdonald constantly changed homes, living with his mother who was in poor health. He later wrote that he had figured out that he, up until the age o...
Literary figures
Sam Spade
Gender: Male
Dashiell Hammett only wrote one novel and a few short stories about the American private detective Sam Spade. The Maltese Falcon, however, is a major classic and like some of his short stories it is the precursor of the hardboiled detective story. The cynical, tough and outright rude Spade and his personal habits are so often copied that they have become clichés.