Photo: Geoffrey Swaine /REX/TT
Sample of authors
Harris, Robert
Robert Dennis Harris is a British author born in Nottingham where his father worked at a printing plant. When he was very young Harris decided that he too wanted to work with text and print. The family moved to Leicestershire when he was nine. He attended Belvoir High School at Bottesford and 1971–75 King Edward VII School at Melton Mowbray. He then went on to read English and history at Selwyn C...
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.