Forgotten Book: The Continental Op: The Complete Case Files by Dashiell Hammett, 1923 – 1930, Edited by Richard Laymon and Julie M. Rivette

Hammett’s Continental Op stories aren’t as well known as his novels, but they still pack a punch.

By Scott A. Cupp

This is the 202nd in my series of Forgotten Books.

Like John D. MacDonald in last week’s Forgotten Book, it would be hard to imagine a world where Dashiell Hammett is a “forgotten writer.” The five novels ranging from Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Glass Key, The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man have been printed and reprinted over and over. In fact, The Maltese Falcon is one of the greatest novels in the English language. Together with Raymond Chandler and Carroll John Daly, Hammett led the charge to take murder and mayhem out of the English drawing room and pit it back on the mean streets.

I have read each of those books, multiple times, over the past 50 years, and I watch the films whenever they are on. I cannot count the number of times of time I have heard Sam Spade say “the stuff dreams are made of.”

But it is easy to forget that those novels did not spring fully realized from the head of Hammett. He had an apprenticeship period, generally in the Black Mask magazine. And he told many of these tales through the eyes of a short, fat unnamed detective who worked for the Continental Detective Agency in San Francisco. There are a number of Hammett short story collections that have been published throughout the years, some with great titles like Dead Yellow Women, The Creeping Siamese and The Big Knockover. But, until this volume, there has never been a complete accounting of the Continental Op stories.

The three title stories listed in the previous paragraph are all among the best of the stories contained in The Continental Op: The Complete Case Files, this week’s book. But, again, these stories did not just leap from Hammett’s fingertips. Editors Laymon and Rivette group the stories into three groups – The Early Years (1923-1924) with 10 stories beginning with “Arson Plus”; The Middle Years (1924-1926) with 11 stories, beginning with “The House in Turk Street” (one of my favorites) through “The Gutting of Couffignal” (another amazing story); and The Later Years (1927-1930) with 8 stories beginning with “The Creeping Siamese” and including the near novel The Big Knockover,” its sequel “$106,000 Blood Money” and “Death and Company.” That period also includes one unfinished story, “Three Dimes.” All but two of the published stories appeared in Black Mask.

The Early Years stories are all okay. None of them particularly leapt out to me as an Oh-My-God! moment. But with the advent of Hammett’s middle period and “The House in Turk Street” and its sequel “The Girl With the Silver Eyes,” there was a difference in the writing, a leanness that moved the stories along, even though they were longer pieces. In this period we get the stories previously noted as well as “The Whosis Kid,” “Who Killed Bob Teal” and “Dead Yellow Women.” If he had stopped writing at this point, he would still be revered today.

The later years bring it all home, though. “The Big Knockover” and “$106,000 Blood Money” were issued together as a short novel by Dell Paperbacks and as a hardcover from World Publishing. They are a little short to be considered a complete novel, but they are very, very good. During this period, I also liked “The Creeping Siamese” and “Fly Paper.” There were one or two contrived pieces, especially “The King Business” (one of the two non-Black Mask stories), which takes the Op away from San Francisco and into Europe with a young man being maneuvered into funding a political revolution.

Read in one or two sittings, these stories will get old. Spread over a week or month, however, they retain their wonderful flavor. If, like me, you have not read all of these or only know Hammett through his novels, this is where you want to be. If you are interested in the history of the mystery field in the 20th Century, this is where you need to be. The introductory essays before each section are worth the price of admission alone. If character names like The Whosis Kid, Paddy the Mex, Bluepoint Vance, Wop Healy, Tom-Tom Carey, and the Did-and-Dat Kid strike your fancy, this is the book for you. (I should mention that Hammett was definitely a product of his time, and there are some ethnic slurs that were common in the period and which reflect the character of the Operative. Just a word to not be surprised when you run into those words. There are not a lot of them, but they could be jarring to some readers.)

Looking again this evening, this particular version does not appear to be available on Amazon. Which is a crying shame. There are multiple volumes which reprint all the stories, but it talks some work and money. I got this in September 2016 for $14.99, the most I ever have paid for an e-book. And it was worth every penny.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

Forgotten Book: Space For Hire by William F. Nolan (1971)

Psychedelic cover art isn't the only thing going for Space for Hire.

Review by Scott A. Cupp

This is the 156th in my series of Forgotten Books.

William F. Nolan has been around a long time and produced a great body of work. Most famous for his collaboration with George Clayton that gave us LOGAN’S RUN. He’s worked in the teen market, star biographies, non-fiction, mystery, television and film industries. He’s won the Life Achievement Award from the International Horror Guild, the Horror Writers of America, and the World Fantasy Convention. He is an Author Emeritus of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He has also won the Mystery writers of America Edgar Award a couple of times.

I first encountered his work in short story form in the mid 1960’s and then found LOGAN’S RUN. I liked what I read. I later met him at a couple of conventions and found he was a pretty nice guy. In 1987, Joe Lansdale and I took our families on vacation to southern California and one evening was spent over dinner with Nolan, RC Matheson, and David Schow. This was a very fun trip.

So, I was ready for a really good time when I picked up SPACE FOR HIRE the other night as a book to read. It’s an early mystery/science fiction combination. Nolan has a passion for the Black Mask Boys – Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Erle Stanley Gardner (with three novels featuring the characters, formal biographies of Hammett, and an informal study of the three writers).

This book was fun. Sam Space (it only takes one small straight line to convert that to Spade) is working on a case for Esma Pitcairn Umani (a striking Venusian woman with three heads and the skill to use all three of them. Her father, Dr. Emmanual Quantas Umani, is working on a secret project. His enemies are fairly successful at killing him, but he has perfected the process of transferring his mind to other bodies. Unfortunately, his supply is low and he needs Space to accompany a load a fresh bodies from Allnew York and see that they arrive safely on Mars. It’s a simple job.

But no job is ever simple. On the trip he meets Nicole, a stunning red head with winking nipples who wants to seduce him. He gets hit with drugs and finds he has missed his return trip and Dr. Umani and Esma have been killed.

This would normally be the logical end of the story, but logic plays no part in this story. There are alternate realities, multiple versions of each person, time travel, Zubu birds from Pluto, gungoons, the Robot King of the Solar System and his pet dragon, and many more twists and moebius style turns.

At first I was skeptical but the story got wackier and wackier until I was absolutely loving it. So, give it a look if the above piques your interest (and even if it doesn’t). Nolan is a demonstrated master of many forms and they all run wild in here.

As always, your mileage may vary, particularly if you have trouble with the whole cross genre thing.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.