Mon 4 Nov 2024
Diary Review / Pulp PI Stories I’m Reading: DASHIELL HAMMETT “Corkscrew.”
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Pulp Fiction[3] Comments
DASHIELL HAMMETT “Corkscrew.” First published in The Black Mask, September 1925. Collected in The Big Nightmare (Random House, 1966).
A new deputy sheriff comes to a small town in the Arizona desert, His job is to clear out troublemakers for an irrigation company, but the story means more [than that even] before the anonymous deputy is discovered to be the Continental Op – simply by reflecting attitudes of the real West. (4)
— September 1968.
November 5th, 2024 at 4:56 am
This was a real treat to read. An offbeat tale that takes the op out East. (Out West to most of us Easterners ) One memorable scene of this tale is when the locals give the Op a horse to ride that they say is quite tame but is really a Bucking Bronco. Great Stuff!!
November 5th, 2024 at 5:38 am
As with many Hammett tales, the solution to the crime seems much less important than the mayhem of getting there.
November 10th, 2024 at 8:51 pm
Hammett’s pulp roots show in his branching out with the Op to do a Western and a more or less Ruritanian adventure (the one where he confesses that mobs make him wish he was on a rooftop with a .50 caliber machine gun). RED HARVEST has something of a Western touch to it as well.
One of Hammett’s earliest stories was a Conradian South Sea story.