So I picked up the latest edition of Don Herron’s Hammett Tour guidebook (and a very fine one it is) and started re-reading The Complete Works. I began with the Continental Op stories, because they’re my favorites, and have been reading them in order of publication.
The first few Op tales are well-written, and groundbreaking in that they present a realistic look at the work of a big agency detective, just the sort of work (minus the strikebreaking) that Hammett did for the Pinkertons.
Given his druthers, I suspect Hammett would have continued in that vein, turning out stories that would have been more appropriate in True Detective than in Black Mask. Thankfully, Black Mask’s readers wouldn’t let him. Being fans of such wildly unrealistic private dicks as Carroll John Daly’s Race Williams, they were a bloodthirsty bunch, demanding ever more action.
To keep the readers (and editor Cap Shaw) happy, Hammett was forced to take his Op beyond reality to the edge of Hardboiled Fantasyland. Whether that was a good or bad thing depends on your perspective. My take is - it was perfect. The Op remained a real detective, and a real man, but he was thrust into ever more violent - and entertaining - situations, until reaching his absolute peak in my favorite Hammett novel, Red Harvest. I’ll be re-reading that book soon, and chances are it will still be my fave, but last week I got reacquainted with the book that could have been Hammett’s first novel, and it’s a damn strong contender. For the poetry of its violence, it has never been excelled.
Blood Money began life as two 1927 Black Mask novelettes, “The Big Knockover” and “$106,000 Blood Money.” At one point, Afred A. Knopf wanted to published them as a novel. Hammett refused, but in 1943, Lawrence E. Spivak, the company that had been churning out his pulp stories in digest format, did the deed under the title $106,000 Blood Money. In short order, Tower Books did a hardcover edition as Blood Money and Dell followed suit with a mapback.
Spivak did another digest version, this time called The Big Knockover, and Dell reissued the Blood Money mapback, so the “novel” was actually published five times. Though I have all five, I chose to read the Tower hardcover for the ultimate experience. Part 1, originally “The Big Knocker” is a trip to Fantasyland, with a hundred or more mobsters coming from across the country to converge on San Francisco and rob two banks at once. When the mastermind and his core supporters escape, the Op stays on their trail, and delivers their just deserts in Part 2, originally“$106,000 Blood Money.” Part 2 is more grounded in reality, but is every bit as entertaining. Hammett’s prose had been steadily improving, and by this point it was flat-out amazing. Even though I just finished the book, I already want to read it again.
Since 1966, when Random House issued their version of The Big Knockover, a 13-story hardcover collection edited by Lillian Hellman, the two tales have appeared as separate novelettes. Too bad. Together, they're every bit as novelesque as the two official Op novels, Red Harvest and The Dain Curse. Currently, the Blood Money saga appears as a small part of the 2001 collection Crime Stories and Other Writings. It deserves better.
This week’s amazing selection of Forgotten Books is linked for your convenience at SPINETINGLER.
Hammet was my first pulp writer outside the weird fantasy type of pulp. And remains as my favorite in this sense.
ReplyDeletePlus. he's the only pulp wordsmith i achieved the goal to make my close relatives to read. My mother, for example. She loves Red Harvest.
To me... The short stories. I'm deeply in love with the short story format.
And, Deka, you probably know that Hammett edited a pioneering anthology of horror fiction, pioneering in reprinting so much from the pulps, CREEPS BY NIGHT.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering about this Hammett novel that didn't ring a bell!
I read the Tower edition many, many years ago. Great stuff. But that's true of all the Op stories. He's my favorite Hammett character.
ReplyDeleteI've read several of these but not Blood Money. Red harvest is perhaps my favorite.
ReplyDeleteTodd: No, i didn't knew. But thanks for saying! :)
ReplyDeleteI read it "The Big Knockover" back when, and you're right, it's a trip to fantasyland. An darned entertaining one, though. I've been trying to think of which Hammett novel is my favorite (I do love the Continental Op stories!) and I'm not sure. It's been too darn long since I read them, and then it was practically back-to-back so they blur a bit in my mind. Must do some rereading. Soon.
ReplyDeleteI love the Op stories. It's by far the best, most visceral work Hammett has written. Thanks for the recommendation, will check it out.
ReplyDeleteThe Don Herron Hammett tour is great- worth way more than the $10 he charges.
ReplyDeleteWhenI first read THE BIG KNOCKOVER i saw it as a Coen brothers movie just waiting to be scripted (and Danny DeVIto was still young enough to play him).
ReplyDeleteI think this holds together better than RED HARVEST but they were both a blast.
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