Sun 20 Oct 2024
Diary Review: DASHIELL HAMMETT – The Big Knockover [edited by Lillian Hellman].
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews[3] Comments
DASHIELL HAMMETT – The Big Knockover [edited by Lillian Hellman]. Random House, hardcover, 1966.
Nine adventures of the anonymous Continental Op, plus an unfinished portion of a novel titled “Tulip.” The Op was [among the first] hard-boiled detectives in fiction, so the effectiveness of the writing may have become diluted by the appearance of all those who followed. The confused younger generation of characters in the stories this collection contains has a great role in the stories, as well as the usual underworld population at the time.
Rating: *****
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Note: I reviewed the stories separately, and these will be posted here on this blog individually over the next few days and weeks ahead. Also, in my original review of the collection itself, I referred to the Continental Op as the first hard-boiled fictional detective. The actual very first may have been Carroll John Daly’s Terry Mack, or if not him, then certainly the same writer’s Race Williams, neither of whom I may have heard of at the time I wrote this review.
October 20th, 2024 at 10:41 pm
An important collection though it also has to be remembered Hellman kept much of his pulp work out of print because she thought it beneath him. Her legacy as the caretaker of his work is decidedly mixed.
October 22nd, 2024 at 3:44 am
Quite true, David, leading one (this one, anyway) to wonder what motive prompted her to release this collection when she did.
October 23rd, 2024 at 12:50 am
Gah. “Tulip” that one experimental tale –I must honestly admit –turned my stummick. I hated it so much I had to set it aside.
I delved into it as eagerly as I would any Dash story –only to find myself nauseated.
I donno –it had something to do with shotguns, duck-hunting, socialism, and homosexuality. Was not at all written in the usual hard-hitting Dash style.
The rest of the superb ‘Big Knockover’ and ‘Continental Op’ stories, I devoured. Exhilarating reading experience.