5.27.2010

Episode 121: Dashiell Hammett Sampler

In which we find They Can Only Hang You Once.

EP 121: Dashiell Hammett Sampler
(download or listen via this link)

Rating: PG for murder and mayhem

This book is under copyright.


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1 comment:

  1. OK, I forgive the book delay because of the Dashiell Hammett short story.

    Last year I reviewed a modern prequel for Sam Spade -- Spade and Archer - and realized I had never read any of the Dashiell Hammett books. So for Christmas I got the complete novel collection. They were all very good and I was stunned that in his long career he only wrote 4 novels and only one of them was a Sam Spade novel.

    Red Harvest his first novel was a gang land period piece with a Pinkerton type detective who is never actually named. Amazingly good. Now as a serios fan of the Maltese Falcon movie which I have seen at least a dozen times I was glad to find how good the book was and as you mentioned the description of Spade does not exactly fit Humphrey Bogart. Though certainly Bogart became the classic stereotype detective doing both Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

    His Thin Man novel really surprised me. I am also a big fan of the Thin Man movie series which I have also seen multiple times. The wit contained in the movies certainly reflected the book and the movie follows the book quite well, even using lines from it. - though I think he also wrote the screenplay for the first movie.

    So I am confident that you would certainly enjoy the novels being that they are quite well written and plotted.

    As for Chandler that is another writer hole that I must plug and he is on my wish list. So looking forward to the Chandler short story - but please get back to Riddle of the Sands sometime :)

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