Thu 2 Jul 2020
Pulp PI Stories I’m Reading. DASHIELL HAMMETT “The Scorched Face.â€
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Stories I'm Reading[5] Comments
DASHIELL HAMMETT “The Scorched Face.†The Continental Op #17. Novelette. First published in The Black Mask, March 1925. Collected in Nightmare Town (Mercury, paperback, 1948) and The Big Knockover (Random House, 1966). Reprinted in Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories, edited by Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian (Oxford University Press, 1995) among others.
You may certainly correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think this is one of Hammett’s better known stories, and do you know, I don’t remember reading it before last night (from the Pronzini/Ardian anthology). I know I read The Big Knockover from cover to cover when it came out in paperback, but last night? Nothing came back.
Here’s something else you can correct me on if I’m wrong, and that’s that I think the story is based on one of Hammett’s own cases when he was a Pinkerton detective. He’s hired here by a distraught father whose two daughters have gone missing. There was a small disagreement about money, but nothing out of the ordinary. What convinces the Op that the girls may be in considerable danger is that one of their female friends commits suicide the same evening after he questions her about them.
The first part of the tale is filled with plodding legwork — no, plodding is not quite right word. It’s the kind of work a private investigator always has to do before he gets any traction on a case, and yet Hammett’s flair for detail as well as the personalities involved keeps the story in at least second gear until things begin to fall into place. This is about halfway through, and this is when the story really starts to take off, punctuated by short one line paragraphs that the reader (me) simply can’t read fast enough.
The crime involved is not a new one by today’s standards, but I’ll bet it raised a few eyebrows back in 1925. It didn’t do too badly last night, either.
July 2nd, 2020 at 7:58 pm
That the very conservative and rather prudish BM let Hammett go there was a sign how much the valued him. The details of old fashioned detective work take on a more polished patina in the hands of a master like Hammett.
July 3rd, 2020 at 12:27 pm
The Op handled “wandering daughter” jobs in at least three stories, all of which were included in THE BIG KNOCKOVER collection It seems safe to assume he was familiar with this kind of investigation, although I don’t recall anything by Hellman, Hammett’s daughter, or others to confirm that. As I recall, the climax of Robert B. Parker’s VALEDICTION pretty much emulates the Op’s home-invasion of the blackmail cult’s hideaway in “The Scorched Face.”
July 3rd, 2020 at 7:04 pm
“The Scorched Face” is one of Hammett’s best tales.
I’ve long promoted it on my website – my Hammett article mentions “The Scorched Face.†29 times.
Detective Sergeant O’Gar of the San Francisco Police Homicide Detail is a continuing character in the Op tales. In Part I of The Dain Curse (1928), Pat Reddy, the young cop of “The Scorched Face” returns and is partnered with O’Gar.
July 3rd, 2020 at 7:49 pm
All good information, Mike. Thanks! This only goes to remind me that when I bought The Big Book of Continental Op stories a while ago, I promised myself I’d sit down and work my way through it (though not in one sitting!).
Well, I read the first one, and that was it. Why settle for lesser stories? I don’t know why, but I seem to, way too often.
July 3rd, 2020 at 7:56 pm
This is sadly a pretty common tale for private or public investigators to run across over all economic boundaries. I don’t doubt Hammett either worked or knew a case like this.