ABSTRACT
J. A. Zumoff argues that by 1924, Hammett was still only exploring the themes commonly associated with the politics of the Gilded Age of the Roaring 1920s, such as political corruption, social tensions caused by urbanization and industrialization, and the increasing breakdown of bourgeois respectability. The study of storytelling as a mechanism whereby narratives can affect beliefs is at the core of transportation theory a key understanding in the study of true crime. Making a Murderer employs title cards, interviews, news reports, and hours of courtroom and police interrogation footage to curate the narrative. E. Heyne also argues "the author is sole determinant of whether a text is fact or fiction whereas the reader judges for herself whether a work is good or bad. Even though Hammett's disaffection with capitalism subverted the same justice that his true crime stories seemed to signify, it is likely that Hammett never stopped believing in democracy.
