Night Shots - a Continental Op Short Story - #7

The Continental Op

by Dashiell Hammett

Who took a shot at the nasty old businessman, Talbert Exon, while he was in bed at home recovering from pneumonia? The Op gets the assignment from his employer, the Continental Detective Agency, and travels to Knownburg in San Joaquim County to find out. For awhile he's stumped!

Black Mask introduced it this way: "Mr. Hammett's nameless detective is lured into a sweet little domestic mess with an outside mystery; as usual, he walks into a lot of excitement, not all of which comes from the muzzle of a gun."

Librarian's note #1: this entry is for the story, Night Shots. Entries for collections of short stories and the other individual stories can be found elsewhere on Goodreads. There are a total of 28 short stories plus one incomplete; they can all be found by searching Goodreads for: a Continental Op Short Story.

Librarian's note #2: there are also two Continental Op novels, Red Harvest (also known as The Cleansing of Poisonville), and The Dain Curse.

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Short Stories, Fiction

11 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 1924

About the author

Also wrote as Peter Collinson, Daghull Hammett, Samuel Dashiell, Mary Jane Hammett

Dashiell Hammett, an American, wrote highly acclaimed detective fiction, including The Maltese Falcon (1930) and The Thin Man (1934).

Samuel Dashiell Hammett authored hardboiled novels and short stories. He created Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) among the enduring characters. In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on film, Hammett "is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time" and was called, in his obituary in the New York Times, "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction."

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashiell...

Reviews

[Jack Heath · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Stars. Good but a touch ponderous. Although I didn't guess the solution, good, this is supposed to be a mystery after-all, it felt slow. No idea why. Perhaps I was searching for a sympathetic lead character and found none. Night Shots is an 11 page story from The Big Book of the Continental Op, which came out in 2017. It first appeared in Black Mask in 1924. Our private detective from San Francisco has been hired to look into a domestic shooting in nearby Knownburg. Something strange had happened. A shot had been fired at Talbert Exon, the 57-year-old owner of the house, the previous evening while he was bedridden with pneumonia. Exon's son-in-law, Mr. Gallaway, had retained the Op although, upon meeting him, Gallaway said, "I don't expect results. I sent for you more for the soothing effect of your presence on the household." The scene of the crime was on the second floor in the front bedroom. Had the window been open? Was it accessible via the porch roof? Even the Op says the case wasn't much to his taste. But he plods on. Oops, I was sympathetic to Exon's nurse! (Oc2020/Jun2026)

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sick, bedridden man is the target of some clumsy assassination attempts... or is he? Hammett leaves too much to the final denouement and the confession of the would be killer.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25⭐

[Juergen John Roscher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this Dashiell Hammett Short story mystery is not one of his better stories. It was fairly obvious who the attempted murderer was early in the story. I did enjoy the story, just not one of my favorite Hammett short stories.