Mon 18 Nov 2024
Pulp PI Stories I’m Reading / Diary Review: DASHIELL HAMMETT “$106,000 Blood Money.”
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Pulp Fiction[4] Comments
DASHIELL HAMMETT “$106,000 Blood Money.” First published in Black Mask, May 1927. Collected in The Big Nightmare (Random House, 1966).
Sequel to “The Big Knockover.” The brother of a murdered gunman attempts to collect the reward money for bringing in Papadopolos. These two stories together vividly describe the underworld and its inhabitants, the temptation of crime, and its viciousness. (4)
— September 1968.
November 18th, 2024 at 7:12 pm
This is the last of the Op stories in THE BIG NIGHTMARE. It is somewhat of a mystery to me that I gave all but one of the stories a “4” — that one I rated as a “5” — but my younger self is/was a somewhat different person than I am now.
I still have my copy of THE BIG NIGHTMARE, and what’s better, I even know exactly where it is. I’m tempted to take it out and make my way through it again, reporting back here as I go. This is not a threat, and I’m really not very likely to follow through on this.
But as I say, I am tempted.
November 19th, 2024 at 5:14 am
I’m not sure where this places chronologically in Hammett’s body of work. I first read it 60 years ago when I bought a bunch of Dell Mapbacks and Bestseller Mysteries at a scrofulous used book store (3 for a quarter.)But I like to think it shows Hammett getting impatient with the short story and straining for something novel-length.
November 19th, 2024 at 1:50 pm
Others beside me have wondered about this, but by combining “The Big Knockover” (45 pages) with “$106,000 Blood Money” (36 pages) into one story, and adding some additional material, you’d have almost a full novel. Why it was never never done is an interesting question.
November 23rd, 2024 at 12:18 am
Always a bit of a shock to notice how many of these have Western covers, a genre that was almost as common as detective stories in early MASK issues and interspersed with a few South Sea covers too.