‘Lost Stories’ (2005) gathers Hammett’s hidden gems; plus, it’s a biography

Editor Vince Emery provides an archeological service as well as a literary one with “Lost Stories” (2005). He started by tracking down every under-published story of Dashiell Hammett’s in their original form. (Although many stories were readily available from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, those were edited and retitled. This book goes back to the originals.)

Then he chose the best 21 of the bunch. Along with “Nightmare Town” (1999) and “Crime Writings and Other Stories” (2001), fans now had easy access to most stories. “The Hunter and Other Stories” (2013) would then collect previously unpublished scraps, and “The Big Book of the Continental Op” (2017) added the two rarest Op stories plus a fragment, while also including the rare original magazine texts of the two Op novels.

“Lost Stories’ ” 21 selections are strong on their own but enhanced by Emery’s before-and-after analyses that make reading even the so-so entries a joy. Like a study guide, he encourages us to look for “Hammettisms” in the early entries. Later in the chronology, as Hammett’s short-story writing (particularly of lost stories) tails off, Emery turns into a biographer.

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Here we get unadulterated and shocking details of Hammett’s devotion to Communism, specifically Stalinism (which is unsavory, but it doesn’t excuse the U.S. government’s later treatment of him).

And Emery dryly outlines Hammett’s wildly fluctuating financial and health situations, allowing us to understand story contexts as well as the reason for his fluctuating output. As fans lament, he didn’t write any novels or stories after 1934’s “The Thin Man,” even though that book made him a superstar.

An ear for the absurd

Similar to “Hunter and Other Stories,” but with better material, “Lost Stories’ ” core takeaway is not Hammett’s mystery crafting (found elsewhere) but rather his wit regarding everyday absurdities. At his best, he’s not far removed from what Vonnegut would later do. (SPOILERS FOLLOW.)

In fact, I have to strongly consider “The Sardonic Star of Tom Doody” as my favorite Hammett story. The title character is wrongly imprisoned for a crime, then he claims religious conversion to get early parole, then he becomes a lauded and successful speaker on the power of moral reform via God. Then it comes out that he was never a criminal, and thus is charged with fraud. The irony is delicious, and Hammett achieves it in a mere seven pages.

Other tales with grin-worthy ironies include:

• “The Barber and His Wife,” where a man believes in the masculine ideal of being a tough guy, but in his case, it drives his wife into the arms of the rival he has seemingly dispatched;
• “The Joke on Eloise Morey” – a gender-role reverse of “Barber” — where a woman covers up a minor issue and, in doing so, accidentally frames herself for a bigger crime;
• the one-paragraph “The Parthian Shot,” where a woman is annoyed that her baby has the same disposition as her husband, so she leaves them both; and
• “The Green Elephant,” where an opportunistic man steals a bag of cash but the idea of getting caught causes him such stress that he gradually wants to get caught.

Hardboiled grows from disdain for classical

Specifically, Hammett liked to poke fun at classic mysteries (Holmes and the like) for their lack of realism. Of course, Hammett’s career shows him building the new branch of hardboiled mysteries, but these shorts show how deliberate that path was. Among these stories are:

• “The Road Home,” his first detective story and a thesis statement for all that will follow (In this one, a detective gives in to the temptations of the criminal world that would hold no sway for the likes of Holmes. Of course, the Op and Spade wouldn’t give in, but we’re meant to think they might.);
• the super-short “The Master Mind,” where Hammett lists a classical detective’s amazing achievements in crime-solving, followed by his mundane finances;
• “Itchy,” where the titular man styles himself as a criminal mastermind in terms of dress and behavior, but has no hope in terms of smarts; and
• the delightfully ridiculous “Another Perfect Crime,” where a criminal sets up a scene so he obviously did it, figuring that will fool the sleuth into thinking he couldn’t have possibly done it.

(END OF SPOILERS.)

Across all media

Readers won’t get any of the Op or Spade here, but they’ll get a slice of “The Thin Man” franchise. To accompany the biographical reminder that Nick and Nora Charles were a cash cow for Hammett in the 1940s, Emery includes “The Thin Man and the Flack.”

Although written by an unknown author, Emery chooses to include it as a bonus; it’s a short-story spinoff from the “Thin Man” radio series, to which Hammett smartly retained the rights when he sold the screen rights. It’s not just any short story: It includes photographs of the radio actors playing out scenes. This format – “Cameradio” – didn’t catch on, although it has a close relative in illustrated novels.

The core of Hammett’s bibliography ended in 1934, but the biographical part of “Lost Stories” reminds us of his under-credited collaborations with Lillian Hellman, most famously “The Children’s Hour” and “Watch on the Rhine” (plays turned movies).

And Emery touts Hammett’s influence on hardboiled fiction and even other genres that wasn’t acutely felt in the 1920s (when the now-dismissed S.S. Van Dine and Carroll John Daly were much more popular) but eventually became the mainstream style of American mysteries. “We all hear Hammett’s voice,” Emery says. That’s hard to debate.

Sleuthing Sunday reviews the works of Agatha Christie, along with other new and old classics of the mystery genre.