The latest issue of
American Book Review (Vol. 34, Number 5) includes a review of
Shadow Man: A Biography of Lewis Miles Archer by Mike Ingram. Ingram writes:
The shadow man, Hammett himself says in one of the book’sopening chapters, “is meant to blend in, to disappear by alwaysbeing there.” Which is a particularly apt description of Archerhimself, who in the book’s pages would seem to disappear again andagain, slipping through our fingers just when we think we have himin our grasp, until by book’s end, we’re left wondering how wedidn’t notice him standing there, right next to us, all along.
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