If you want to see a bunch of covers from issues of Black Mask where Op yarns appeared, plus covers from various editions of Op books foreign and domestic, Old School and more recent, then surf over to Evan Lewis’s blog that announces his EQMM story “The Continental Opposite” and click through for the next few days until Evan pulls out of Op mania and moves on to the next thing.
I was interested to see that Evan agrees with me that
“Death and Company” feels like an early Op story, although it would be the last one published in Black Mask — but puzzled that he thinks “The Farewell Murder” (Hammett’s next-to-last Op tale in BM) also was written early on, when all the stylistic touches are what would turn out to be Late Hammett.
Evan opines that “Farewell” “was clearly written far earlier — most likely in 1923.” Me, I’m sticking with a creation date at the end of Hammett’s amazing run of fiction for The Mask.
