Forgotten Book: THE GLASS KEY, Dashiell Hammett

This entry into Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books, being hosted this week by Richard Robinson, comes from my records of 1993.

Publisher's blurb
This comes from Amazon, where you can read a few pages online and buy this 1931 classic in all formats including Kindle.
Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward-heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett's tour de force of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness.

A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Dashiell Hammett virtually invented the hard-boiled crime novel.  This classic Hammett work of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness.

First published in 1931.
To the right is the first cover (1st edition Alfred A. Knopf)

The Glass Key award (Swedish: Glasnyckeln) is named after the novel and is presented annually for the best crime novel by a Scandinavian author.

Dashiell Hammett's novels (courtesy Wikipedia)

• Red Harvest (published on February 1, 1929)
• The Dain Curse (July 19, 1929)
• The Maltese Falcon (February 14, 1930)
• The Glass Key (April 24, 1931)
• The Thin Man (January 8, 1934)

Samuel Dashiell Hammett (May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse).