Reviews
Noir is an easy genre to love when it's done well. While I haven't previously read any of Dashiell Hammett's written works (I have adored film adaptations of some of them; "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Thin Man" come immediately to mind) "Red Harvest" is a dizzying introduction to his style and sense of story. In true noir fashion, there are no real "good guys" in this tale of a town rotting through with corruption. The protagonist, a nameless private detective, is called in to the town appropriately known as "Poisonville" by the son of a desperate millionaire who has lost his once iron-clad grip on the burg. The son's untimely death leads our "hero" to the old man's home, where he learns that the criminal element the former puppet master brought in to break up a long-standing labour strike grew too strong for him to retain what little control he had on it. Bedridden and desperate, the two soon strike up a deal: the detective will do whatever it takes to "clean up" the streets of Poisonville and drive out the worst of the city's bad seeds. What follows is an amoral mess of absolute proportions: characters are introduced and disposed of with increasing rapidity, twists of varying degree are revealed with no warning, and the violence ratchets up to seemingly-impossible degrees. What Hammett has created here is a prototypical noir story taken to its logical extremes. The conflict is spread to dozens of characters in an audaciously wide-scope case of the ends justifying the means. His language is infectiously of-the-moment and his character's motivations are deliciously primal. The ideas of morality, justice, and law are examined through their conspicuous absence, leaving the reader to sift through the carnage and decide who, if anyone, is in the right. "Red Harvest" is a fantastically fast-paced and engrossing read that never stops its forward momentum. And thank goodness for that.
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett is one of two novels featuring the Continental Op, a character based on Hammett's own experience as a private investigator for the Continental Detective Agency. In this book the C.O. goes on assignment to Personville, aka Poisonville, an old mining town. His client is murdered before he has a chance to begin the assignment. In the course of investigating his client's murder he realizes that corruption runs deep and wide in Poisonville and decides to clean things up. The book was published in 1929 but it reads like a modern thriller. The language is raw and the C.O. works by his own rules and moral code. He can seem cruel, crude and indifferent but he's consistent and predictable. While reading the novel I was reminded of a Rockford Files episode from the second season, The Great Blue Lake Land and Development Company. Both are towns with total corruption where it's nearly impossible to find a trustworthy person. Although I liked Red Harvest it didn't pull me in as strongly as The Maltese Falcon. I think part of that was the unfamiliar location and main character. It was my first time reading a Continental Op. story.
I read this on a boat trip and finished it en route. I think the Coen Brothers must have been bingeing on Hammett when they wrote Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink, because I recognize a lot of the phrases that Red Harvest and those movies have in common. I liked this better than The Thin Man; it is more hard-boiled, with tough-talking gangsters; I'm going to have to do some research and see if a noir film was ever made from the book.
4 Stars Dashiell Hammett was the king of Hardboiled Noir, and Red Harvest is yet another example of why. The story is set in the fictional Western town of Personville, but everyone calls it “Poisonville.” It is a town that seeps corruption into anyone who enters. It’s pretty much a Jazz Age Gomorrah. The story starts with the last honest man in Poisonville being murdered. The Continental Detective Agency sends one of their agents to investigate. The story is told in first person by the detective who remains nameless and is only referred to as “The Continental Op.” The first murder is not hard to solve, but by the time The Op solves it, he has managed to piss off nearly every cretin in town. When they take a hit out on him, he takes it personally and decides he won’t leave town until he has given them all their just deserts. This is not done out of any sense of justice. Rather, it’s a big “up yours” for trying to kill him. All of the characters are morally grey (to varying degrees). But there is no “good guy.” Even The Continental Op admits that he can feel the wickedness of the town further corrupting him as he sets out down his path of vengeance. Hammett truly excelled at writing straightforward yet crooked characters and using them to explore the human condition all while maintaining razor-sharp dialogue and snappy plots. Although there is not any in-depth character development, the characters still have different motivations and are distinct from each other. Red Harvest was first published in 1929 and is set in that era, so it has that authentic 1920’s air to it including Roaring Twenties slang. That is something that is difficult to reproduce in modern times without sounding cartoonish. The times also come with discrimination. Although despite a lot of sexism, the women in the story fought just as dirty as the men. Hammett did love his femme fatales after all. The plot was not as elegant as The Maltese Falcon. The chapters were very short which made the flow a little choppy at times. There is a ton of gunslinging action. The action might be a teensy bit over the top but there is a lot of it: a bank robbery, car chases, shoot outs, and lots of plain ole murder. There is also tons of sex (though not explicitly described), drugs, and alcohol. Like I said: Jazz Age Gomorrah. The story is less of a whodunit and more about matching wily wits to see who can stay alive in a town full of corruption and cutthroats. I would recommend Red Harvest to anyone who likes Hardboiled Detective fiction. RATING FACTORS: Ease of Reading: 4 Stars Writing Style: 5 Stars Characters and Character Development: 5 Stars Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars Level of Captivation: 5 Stars Originality: 4 Stars
One of the best books i've read so far this 2019. It's a classic and it definitely deserves that title. It's funny, amazingly witty, shocking, interesting. Hard to believe that it's almost 100 years old!!
This book in gifs: + a lot little bit of: And a lot little bit of: That body count! 🤗😍 Then there's also some of this: And some of that: Such high intensity booze flow, much wow. Aaaannnnd of course no classic Noir story would be complete without: ➽ Nefarious Last Words (NLW™): all in all, you could quite possibly say that reading this book = Maybe.
