The Four Great Novels

The Glass Key is a novel by American writer Dashiell Hammett. First published as a serial in Black Mask magazine in 1930, it then was collected in 1931 (in London; the American edition followed 3 months later). It tells the story of a gambler and racketeer, Ned Beaumont, whose devotion to Paul Madvig, a crooked political boss, leads him to investigate the murder of a local senator's son as a potential gang war brews. Hammett dedicated the novel to his onetime lover Nell Martin. There have been two US film adaptations (1935 and 1942) of the novel. A radio adaptation starring Orson Welles aired on March 10, 1939, as part of his Campbell Playhouse series. The book was also a major influence on the Coen brothers' 1990 film Miller's Crossing, which features a similar scenario. The Glass Key Award (in Swedish, Glasnyckeln), named after the novel, has been presented annually since 1992 for the best crime novel by a Scandinavian writer.