nicanical
This is an awesome collection of Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op stories, originally published in Black Mask.
The stories are well-paced and feature surprising variety in antagonists, supporting characters, motivations, and locations. Stories for the pulps are constrained by the commercial demands of the format so I expected some rehashing, but I finished reading never getting that impression.
Hammett sticks to certain narrative patterns though. He is particularly fond of twists, which all the stories have. Hammett's twists are satisfying, impeccably-timed, and simple—simple is good because there's authenticity in their simplicity. (Compared with the convoluted deductive chains from the "Golden Age" of detective fiction).
The stories are grouped into three parts corresponding to Hammett's periods of contribution. The honing of Hammett's writing is palpable progressing through the parts: prose is streamlined; there's more showing, less telling; command of language is tightened; and the Op behaves more consistently.
Later stories feature more gratuitous violence too, to better appeal to Black Mask's audience—an unfortunate change because it's at the expense of the wonderful investigative details Hammett included in earlier stories (no doubt drawn from his experience as a Pinkerton), such as the use of collodion to fake scar tissue in Bodies Piled Up. Instead, we get stories like The Gutting of Couffignal and Corkscrew which are almost pure violence and, consequently, the least engaging.
Note: this ebook version of The Big Book of the Continental Op is missing the novels and Three Dimes.
This is an awesome collection of Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op stories, originally published in Black Mask.
The stories are well-paced and feature surprising variety in antagonists, supporting characters, motivations, and locations. Stories for the pulps are constrained by the commercial demands of the format so I expected some rehashing, but I finished reading never getting that impression.
Hammett sticks to certain narrative patterns though. He is particularly fond of twists, which all the stories have. Hammett's twists are satisfying, impeccably-timed, and simple—simple is good because there's authenticity in their simplicity. (Compared with the convoluted deductive chains from the "Golden Age" of detective fiction).
The stories are grouped into three parts corresponding to Hammett's periods of contribution. The honing of Hammett's writing is palpable progressing through the parts: prose is streamlined; there's more showing, less telling; command of language is tightened; and the Op behaves more consistently.
Later stories feature more gratuitous violence too, to better appeal to Black Mask's audience—an unfortunate change because it's at the expense of the wonderful investigative details Hammett included in earlier stories (no doubt drawn from his experience as a Pinkerton), such as the use of collodion to fake scar tissue in Bodies Piled Up. Instead, we get stories like The Gutting of Couffignal and Corkscrew which are almost pure violence and, consequently, the least engaging.
Note: this ebook version of The Big Book of the Continental Op is missing the novels and Three Dimes.