Dash Hammett on Crime Writing

Dashiell Hammett on writing crime fiction 

(The Brooklyn Eagle Magazine http://www.thrillingdetective.com/non_fiction/i006.html, 1929):

What I try to do is write a story about a detective rather than a detective story. Keeping the reader fooled until the last, possible moment is a good trick and I usually try to play it, but I can’t attach more than secondary importance to it. The puzzle isn’t so interesting to me as the behavior of the detective attacking it.