james.doherty@gsa.gov
24 Jun 99 09:21:00 -0400
Re Ckottos Nikolai's recent
post:
"'The Op is usually described
as fat, forty, and nameless. Suppose we
told you that all three
adjectives are incorrect. The Continental Op
is not fat, is not forty, and
is not nameless! The truth will be
divulged later--in the fifth
collection.' The fifth collection was, of
course, the infamous _Dead
Yellow Women_. I don't own it, though I
imagine one or two of you
reading this may possess a copy. I suspect
the above passage was more of a
tease than anything else. . ."
*Dead Yellow Women* included
"Who Killed Bob Teal?" which was rejected
by *Black Mask* and published
as a fact-crime article in *True
Detective*. All Hammett did to
convert the story from fiction to
"fact" was to add a paragraph
to the beginning of the story, similar
to the opening of a *Dragnet*
episode. Something along the lines of
"The city and detetive agency
in real life had different names than
the ones I've given them here.
Those familiar with the case will know
that I have kept the facts
straight." The story, as it appeared in
*True Detective* was byl-lined
"Dashiell Hammett of the Continental
Detective Agency." In Queen's
introduction to the "Who Killed Bob
Teal?" in the *Dead Yellow
Women* collection, he noted that the Op
was, to some degree, based on
James Wright, Hammett's first boss in
the Pinkerton agency. However,
from the by-line in the original
magazine publication, Queen
concluded that the Op was really Hammett
himself. Hammett was anything
but fat, as we all know. Neither was
he nameless. If memory serves,
that collection also contained one of
the earliest Op stories, in
which the op states that he's been a
detective for about fifteen
years, and first joined Continental when
he was twenty. Crunch the
numbers and he comes out 35 rather than 40.
Queen pointed that out in
the introduction to that early story.
Hence the three most remembered
characteristics of the Op, fat, 40,
and nameless, were debunked. -
Jim Doherty
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