Crooked Souls - a Continental Op Short Story - #2

The Continental Op

by Dashiell Hammett

The intro to this short story in The Big Book of the Continental Op has this to say: "We've all seen the modern girl. She's a rare bird and here she is in all her glory - if that's what it is. A good detective yarn, this, with lots of action and some real people. Go to it." The note came originally from Black Mask in 1923.

It's all about Mr. Gatewood, his prospering lumber company, and his difficult daughter. There's a kidnapping and our friend the Op finds himself in the middle, in no-man's land.

Librarian's note #1: this entry is for the story, Crooked Souls. 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: Short Stories, Crime, Mystery, Adventure, Noir, Hard Boiled, Detective

10 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1923

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. The second short story taken from The Big Book of the Continental Op of 2017. The ten pages first appeared in Black Mask in 1923. No pseudonym, the author used his real name this time! In all his stories and books, the Op is never named. He serves as the narrator too. A good one! The writing is tight. The Continental Detective Agency has been hired to assist Harvey Gatewood of Gatewood Lumber to locate his daughter who has been kidnapped. The 19-year-old young woman left the family home at about 7 pm the previous evening and failed to return. The next day a letter arrived saying she had been kidnapped; it demanded $50,000 in hundred dollar bills. When the Operative arrives to meet Gatewood, he finds a man more volatile than a volcano. He barks, he confronts, he demands, he bullies. Indeed the Op opines, "For a while it looks as if the C.D.A. is going to lose a client." He wants to quit and stop the abuse of himself and the police! Some good detective work in this one but I did sense the solution before the ending. PS - I took a star off for a racist reference. What is it about the 1920s and 30s in this regard? (Au2020/Jun2026)

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Available to read free here, if you can't wait for an ordered story collection to arrive in the post: https://archive.org/details/FiveConti...

This is the second Continental Op short story written by Dashiel Hammett. The first in the series of 37, "Arson Plus." appeared in the October 1, 1923 issue of The Black Mask. This short story appeared in the next issue, dated October 15, 1923. This too is a well-written, tightly plotted hardboiled detective story concerning the daughter of a lumber baron who has been kidnapped. The kidnappers said no police, but apparently hiring detectives is fair game. So our protagonist, the Continental Op, is called in on the case.

We learn a little more about the protagonist this story. He apparently is not a young man, nor is he thin and able to run far or fast. He works for the Continental Detective Agency, making him an Op, it would seem. This story also reads like a case file report used from an actual case from an actual detective agency. Many of the plot elements here lacked the originality of the earlier story. But still, this is a fun read if not quite as special as the first in the series was.

[Zanahoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

It goes as you'd expect, but the best part was the descriptions "he was his father's daughter" and "sweating hate for each other" are savage lines.

[Cockneylen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bit of a tried and tested story line, but also a bit unfair as this may well have been the first one! OK, but not brilliant, not Raymond Chandler, but worth reading another book.

[Eric Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short & fun mystery about an adult-napping.

[Tojuan Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

one of the shorter Opie stories, good, I Hammett has done this type of bait and switch before(and better) but still good.

[Madison Green]

“Crooked Souls” by Dashiell Hammett falls under the writing category of genre fiction, specifically detective fiction. I really enjoyed reading this story, and I felt like because of the writing style, it was very comprehensible and easy to digest. This is one of my favorite genres to read, and it always reminds me of the stories that first got me into reading. What I thought was interesting about this story was that it had a good amount of comedic writing in it. For example, a line states, “His wicked jaw is sticking out like a knob of granite and his eyes are filmed with blood—he’s in a lovely frame of mind,” as well as, “‘I’ve never been clubbed into doing anything in my life! And I’m too old to start now!’ he said. ‘I’m going to call these people’s bluff!’ ‘That’s going to make it lovely for your daughter.’” Both of these sentences show the kind of satirical, dry humor that the detective has, highlighting his jaded, almost cynical perspective he has on this man. I think this is a common archetype among detectives in genre fiction writing, and some characters that come to mind are Sherlock Holmes, and Hopper from Stranger Things. Something I thought was interesting from the lecture is when you said, “these stories are very translatable to film.” When I was reading both of these stories, I think the reason it felt easy to read and comprehend was because it was easy to visualize in my mind what was happening. The sentence structure was fairly simple and the way that the stories built suspense kept my attention. In this story, there were a handful of lines where I felt the imagery was really well done and did a good job of placing me in the setting. For example, the scene where the detectives and the cops are hunting down the kidnapper when he is trying to lure the father in felt very easy to imagine because of the nature of the writing. Overall, I really enjoyed this story and from analyzing it in the discussion post, I think archetypes like these still exist in common day writing, just with some tweaks to adjust to our society.