Sam Space is a fictional detective created by American writer William F. Nolan. He appears in the novels Space for Hire and Look Out For Space and in several short stories. The name Sam Space is a play on the name Sam Spade, famous fictional detective created by Dashiell Hammett.
The science fiction novels combine hardboiled fiction with science, creating Raymond Chandler-esque detective fiction in space.
References
Sam Space Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA