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Ian "Marvin" Graye's Reviews> The Continental Op
The Continental Op
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Ian "Marvin" Graye's review
bookshelves: hammett, cryme-fick-shun, read-2021, reviews, reviews-5-stars
Nov 25, 2021
bookshelves: hammett, cryme-fick-shun, read-2021, reviews, reviews-5-stars
CRITIQUE:
Exercises in Style
Dashiell Hammett wrote 37 short stories (if you count the unfinished story,"Three Dimes" )featuring the unnamed Continental Op(erative). All of them are featured in "The Big Book of the Continental Op", but only seven appear in the earlier volume that I read (and am reviewing here).
Fortunately, this incompleteness didn't reduce my enjoyment of this volume.
In the Introduction, Steven Marcus reminds us that Hammett wanted to combine the values of literary fiction with the appeal of hard-boiled crime fiction.
Often, when an aspiring novelist resorts to the short story format at the beginning of their career, they're consciously developing a writing style. Their experiments are"exercises in style".
While this might or might not have been the case with Dashiell Hammett, these seven stories show that Hammett had already developed a fully-fledged literary style that didn't detract or distract from the essence of crime fiction.
Exercises in Substance
If anything, Hammett's exercises in style seem to have been focussed on developing story-lines that appealed to readers. Thus, each story reveals Hammett trying his hand at telling a particular type of story.
I haven't tried to investigate whether any of these story lines were unique to Hammett (I would guess not, given the sheer bulk and diversity of crime fiction), but my gut reaction is that Hammett was successful in the seven exercises in style and substance in this collection. The stories all stand alone, and appear to be well constructed and complete. They don't seem to lack anything that might have tempted Hammett to cannibalise them and rewrite them into one of his later novels (as he did with the novels "Red Harvest" and "The Dain Curse" ).
Teasers and Trailers
Below is a short (hopefully spoiler-free) impressionistic teaser/summary of the story line of each of these stories:
The Tenth Clew
Two people who are said to be a brother and sister (but really aren't) try to blackmail a wealthy retired businessman (they're "working a fancy sort of badger-game" on him), but the "sister" develops a genuine affection for him and the scheme collapses. The list of nine clues (apart from the victim's name and address) is phony - they're"nine bum steers".The investigation has to proceed on the basis that all of the evidence has been faked.
The Golden Horseshoe
A man assumes the identity of another man (who is now deceased) and becomes responsible for a crime he has committed, when he destroys a letter that contained his alibi.
The House in Turk Street
A gang of thieves is caught when they mistakenly believe that the Continental Op is on their trail (when in fact he is investigating another crime altogether).
The Girl with the Silver Eyes
The Continental Op unravels a crime as it is happening, when he recognises a beautiful femme fatale from the previous story."You’re beautiful as all hell!"he exclaims, under pressure, but he still makes sure she goes to prison.
The Whosis Kid
A femme fatale creates a sweet mess when she attempts a double crossing (or is it a quadruple crossing or a sextuple crossing?) of her criminal accomplices. She was just too greedy to share a cut.
The Main Death
A maid passes on information about her mistress' affair with her husband's employee to some crooks who rob him of a large sum of money belonging to the husband.
The Farewell Murder
A carefully constructed alibi exonerates the most likely suspect in the murder of the patriarch of a family, while most of the family seem to have a motive for killing him.
Stories About a Detective Attacking a Puzzle
This is how Hammett described his writing goal:
Source
The story-lines are Hammett's test of his short, fat op, all of which he passes admirably.
SOUNDTRACK:
(view spoiler)[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>
Exercises in Style
Dashiell Hammett wrote 37 short stories (if you count the unfinished story,"Three Dimes" )featuring the unnamed Continental Op(erative). All of them are featured in "The Big Book of the Continental Op", but only seven appear in the earlier volume that I read (and am reviewing here).
Fortunately, this incompleteness didn't reduce my enjoyment of this volume.
In the Introduction, Steven Marcus reminds us that Hammett wanted to combine the values of literary fiction with the appeal of hard-boiled crime fiction.
Often, when an aspiring novelist resorts to the short story format at the beginning of their career, they're consciously developing a writing style. Their experiments are"exercises in style".
While this might or might not have been the case with Dashiell Hammett, these seven stories show that Hammett had already developed a fully-fledged literary style that didn't detract or distract from the essence of crime fiction.
Exercises in Substance
If anything, Hammett's exercises in style seem to have been focussed on developing story-lines that appealed to readers. Thus, each story reveals Hammett trying his hand at telling a particular type of story.
I haven't tried to investigate whether any of these story lines were unique to Hammett (I would guess not, given the sheer bulk and diversity of crime fiction), but my gut reaction is that Hammett was successful in the seven exercises in style and substance in this collection. The stories all stand alone, and appear to be well constructed and complete. They don't seem to lack anything that might have tempted Hammett to cannibalise them and rewrite them into one of his later novels (as he did with the novels "Red Harvest" and "The Dain Curse" ).
Teasers and Trailers
Below is a short (hopefully spoiler-free) impressionistic teaser/summary of the story line of each of these stories:
The Tenth Clew
Two people who are said to be a brother and sister (but really aren't) try to blackmail a wealthy retired businessman (they're "working a fancy sort of badger-game" on him), but the "sister" develops a genuine affection for him and the scheme collapses. The list of nine clues (apart from the victim's name and address) is phony - they're"nine bum steers".The investigation has to proceed on the basis that all of the evidence has been faked.
The Golden Horseshoe
A man assumes the identity of another man (who is now deceased) and becomes responsible for a crime he has committed, when he destroys a letter that contained his alibi.
The House in Turk Street
A gang of thieves is caught when they mistakenly believe that the Continental Op is on their trail (when in fact he is investigating another crime altogether).
The Girl with the Silver Eyes
The Continental Op unravels a crime as it is happening, when he recognises a beautiful femme fatale from the previous story."You’re beautiful as all hell!"he exclaims, under pressure, but he still makes sure she goes to prison.
The Whosis Kid
A femme fatale creates a sweet mess when she attempts a double crossing (or is it a quadruple crossing or a sextuple crossing?) of her criminal accomplices. She was just too greedy to share a cut.
The Main Death
A maid passes on information about her mistress' affair with her husband's employee to some crooks who rob him of a large sum of money belonging to the husband.
The Farewell Murder
A carefully constructed alibi exonerates the most likely suspect in the murder of the patriarch of a family, while most of the family seem to have a motive for killing him.
Stories About a Detective Attacking a Puzzle
This is how Hammett described his writing goal:
"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."
Source
The story-lines are Hammett's test of his short, fat op, all of which he passes admirably.
SOUNDTRACK:
(view spoiler)[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>[ "br" ]>
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Reading Progress
October 18, 2021
– Shelved
October 18, 2021
– Shelved as:
to-read
October 18, 2021
– Shelved as:
hammett
October 18, 2021
– Shelved as:
cryme-fick-shun
November 21, 2021
–
Started Reading
November 25, 2021
– Shelved as:
read-2021
November 25, 2021
– Shelved as:
reviews
November 25, 2021
– Shelved as:
reviews-5-stars
November 25, 2021
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-6 of 6 (6 new)
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by
J
(new)
Nov 27, 2021 06:42AM
Hammett looked a bit like Faulkner
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J wrote: "Hammett looked a bit like Faulkner"Very true!
Awesome, Ian. I'll have to pick this up next time I'm in the mood for short stories.
Jared wrote: "Awesome, Ian. I'll have to pick this up next time I'm in the mood for short stories."Make sure you get "The Big Book of the Continental Op".
I really enjoyed the Continental Op stories which are not as well known as Hammett's major works. Looks like you did too, Ian. Wonderful review!
Jill wrote: "I really enjoyed the Continental Op stories which are not as well known as Hammett's major works. Looks like you did too, Ian. Wonderful review!"Thanks, Jill. I really enjoyed them, too.
