While working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Baltimore, he learned the trade and worked in the Continental Trust Building (now known as One Calvert Plaza). He served as an operative for Pinkerton from 1915 to February 1922, with time off to serve in World War I. He left school when he was 13 years old and held several jobs before working for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. As a teen, Hammett attended the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, but his formal education ended during his first year of high school he dropped out in 1908 due to his father's declining health and the need for him to earn money to support the family. Hammett's family moved to Baltimore when he was four years old in 1898, and for the most part, it was the city where he lived until he left permanently in 1920 when was 26 years old. Known as Sam, Hammett was baptized a Catholic and grew up in Philadelphia and Baltimore.

He had an elder sister, Aronia, and a younger brother, Richard Jr. His mother belonged to an old Maryland family, whose name in French was De Chiel. Hammett was born near Great Mills on the 'Hopewell and Aim' farm in Saint Mary's County, Maryland, to Richard Thomas Hammett and his wife Anne Bond Dashiell. His novels and stories also had a significant influence on films, including the genres of private eye/ detective fiction, mystery thrillers, and film noir. Five years later, four out of five of his novels made The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time as selected by the Mystery Writers of America. In 1990, the Crime Writers' Association picked three of his five novels for their list of The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time. 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction.' Time included Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest on its list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 19. In his obituary in The New York Times, he was described as 'the dean of the. Hammett 'is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time'. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade ( The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles ( The Thin Man), The Continental Op ( Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) and the comic strip character Secret Agent X-9.

He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Samuel Dashiell Hammett ( / ˌ d æ ʃ iː l ˈ h æ m ɪ t/ – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories.

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