ejm duggan (ejmd@cwcom.net)
Tue, 31 Aug 1999 10:42:49 +0000
james.doherty@gsa.gov
wrote:
> *Blood Money* was first appeared as two semi-serial
installments in *Black
> Mask* entitled "The Big Knockover" and "$106,000
Blood Money," which told
> the story of a major multiple bank robbery and its
aftermath. The Op is the
> detective who solves the case.
That's right. These were the first stories Hammett wrote for
Black Mask under Joe Shaw. The story runs that when Shaw took
over the editor's job in 1926 he looked through some back
issue and noticed Hammett's distinctive fiction. When Shaw
realised there was no more Hammett work on file, he contacted
Hammett to find out why. Hammett had given up
'Black Masking' because it didn't pay enough and (I think)
had started working as a copywriter for Samuels the
jeweller.
Shaw suggested that Hammett should write longer stories,
hence these two lengthy tales (and the longer serials that
would later become novels).
'$106,000 Blood Money' is, as James has said, a heist caper.
It has a huge cast of characters, many of whom have fairly
loopy names. There's a rather amusing parody of it ('Mud
Bunny') by Joe Breen which is worth a look if you've read
these Hammett tales.
ED
-- # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Tue 31 Aug 1999 - 05:54:28 EDT