San Francisco

Zigzags of Treachery by Dashiell Hammett

     Raymond Chandler singles out “Dashiell Hammett as the person who rescued the genre by bringing it back to the real world” (Malmgren, 371). Having read Hammett’s Zigzags of Treachery, I have to say that I agree with him. Not only is the in plot, clues, characters, and language realistically written according to Chandler precepts, but realism is enforced by the detailed description of the setting in San Francisco. Almost immediately the Continental Op begins tailing Mrs. Estep following her from Montgomery, to the Union Square, to Post Street and Kearney, Powell Street, the St. Francis taxi stand, her flat on Laguna, and the Sutter Street car line. As a “former investigator for the Pinkerton agency in San Francisco,” Dashiell Hammett is able to devise very specific and real details of the Continental Op’s routes taken during the shadowing and investigation (Clark, 15). Not only does this add to the realistic nature of the story, it adds to and complicates the mystery that the Op is investigating. By specifically addressing the windy and zigzagging streets of San Francisco, we begin imagining a complex and difficult setting in which only our detective, a man of the streets, could possibly hope to navigate. On streets such as these, nothing is what it seems. Not only are the players in the mystery involved in Zigzags of Treachery, but also the streets of San Francisco itself.

     One of Malmren’s main arguments is that “throughout Hammett's fiction runs the fear that nothing can be taken at face value, nothing is what it appears to be” (Malmren, 375). By writing this way, Hammett uses the windy treacherous streets of San Francisco to not only add confusion but also deception. However, no matter how complicated the description of the streets are, the Op is never disoriented. Not only does the unnavigable San Francisco complicate the already complicated mystery, but it plays with our image of our hero. The detective, a man pursuing a criminal, seeking justice, and wishing to reveal crime, is a man very at home in a “world where a cheap and thin veneer of glamour conceals a shabby or seedy reality” (Malmren, 372). Like San Francisco, our Op is a surprisingly complex character. For a man seeking the truth, he seems far too comfortable while role-playing. He is able to deceive the criminal Ledwich, making him believe that he is an ally. Hammett writes an exceptionally interesting tale in which the setting almost plays as a character. By looking at the relationship between the detective and the city, and the detective’s relation to justice, we see that San Francisco has as much to do with the detective’s character as his actions and speech does.

            

     One of the most interesting results from stories such as Zigzags of Treachery is that because San Francisco is depicted as a very conceivable and realistic home for murder and deception, our overall idea of the city can arise. Because of detective novels that emphasize the importance of the city, and its role in crime and mystery, San Francisco is almost personified. San Francisco, literally a maze of zigzagging streets, is personified as much as a role-player as the Op is. San Francisco may have a romantic, interesting, colorful exterior, but as soon as you begin navigating it, it is so easy to get lost. There is a darker and frightening side of San Francisco arising from the illusion. The title Zigzags of Treachery not only describes the actions of the dishonest characters, but also the zigzagging streets of the city.