Red Harvest

The story is told by an agent from the Continental Detective Agency. He has been called to the town of Personville or, as he explains, is more aptly named, Poisonville. His client is Donald Willsson, but Willsson is shot and killed before the Continental Op can meet him. He decides to visit Willson's father, Elihu, who until recently ran the town. Elihu Willson winds up hiring the Continental Op to clean up the town by getting rid of the town's 3 criminal bosses. In true gangster-style, the names of the criminals are Max "Whisper" Thaler, Lew Yard and Pete the Finn.The clean up job becomes the main focus of the rest of the book, although along the way, the Continental Op manages to solve the murder of his original client as well as most other minor crimes that spring up around him. The Continental Op is an interesting character, having no qualms about setting others up, knowingly placing them in mortal danger in order to uncover evidence or confirm his suspicions. He will lie, cheat and double-cross just about anyone.The deaths come thick and fast and are mentioned off-handedly, almost as an afterthought. Red Harvest is fast moving and entertaining and as hardboiled as they come.

Dashiell Hammett took the mystery story out of the drawing room and put it squarely into the American street with his stories of his nameless Continental Detective Agency Private Eye during the 1920's. Known as "the Continental Op" Hammett's hero, a short middle aged, slightly fattish loner was a break from the past as regards mystery stories. Hammett, along with Carroll John Daly and other BLACK MASK MAGAZINE pulp writers revolutionized the detective story with their gritty realism and adventurous stories of gats, guns, and molls.RED HARVEST is probably the Continental Op's best know adventure, pitting him against the forces of corruption and crime in a small town named Personville. The Op calls the burg "Poisonville" and the cast of villainous characters that he encounters and goes up against make the nickname quite apt. If you've seen the movies "A Fistful of Dollars", "Last Man Standing", or "Yojimbo" then you have a general idea of what the tale is about. While none of these follows Hammett's intricate plot, the premise of a lone gunman outsmarting and out dueling the whole town is what the story is about. From the time that the Op breezes into town to talk with his client, whom is murdered before the Op can ever meet with him, till the end of the story, there is lots of violence, murder, double dealing and cynical observations by the narrating detective. While we never learn very much about the Op his driven and unswerving dedication to riding the town of any and all opponents takes on the role of obsession and vigilantism by the end of the novel, so much so that the Op himself even begins to have some doubts. Not enough to stop him from completing the job however. Hammett's spare lean style of writing isn't for everybody, especially those who want in-depth character studies where the protagonist spends a lot of time mulling over the state of the universe and his own personal angst. However if you want action and good tight writing then he's your man. A justly acclaimed classic ever since it came out, this novel is the one that started the "hard boiled" school of writing ball rolling.

Hammett's Red Harvest is probably the most devastatingly brutal good novel you'll ever read. It's not like slasher movies -- all blood and gore and no content. It's a book about brutal people, both gangsters and politicians, who will do anything to keep their hands on the power that they've managed to get hold of. The Continental Op, Hamett's anonymous detective, finds that the only way to clean up Personville is to join the fray, and though his conscience bothers him, he fights fire with fire and matches the scummy crooks machiavellian move to machiavellian move. What makes the book tick is precisely the bleak, realistic, nihilism of its main characters, who remind one so much of real politicians and crooks, but without any of the spin-doctor sheen that covers their tracks in the media. Red Harvest is a book I read every couple of years to marvel again at fantastic writing and the no-nonsense view of humanity's common, unadorned, ugliness.

The Continental Op, an anonymous agent of the Continental Detective Agency, comes to corrupt Personville (aka Poisonville) and investigates a series of murders. In succession he confronts the murder of the publisher of the local paper, the murder of the police chief's brother, and the murder of a beautiful woman. The publisher's father, convinced that local gangsters are responsible for his son's death, employs the Op to break up the organized crime stranglehold on Personville. The Continental Op determines that he cannot quickly destroy the crimelords by lawful means, so he decides to work outside the law to destroy them. The murder of the police chief's son provides him with a golden opportunity to maneuver the rival gangs into lethal conflict. During these investigations, peripheral characters drop like flies as rival gangs feud over turf. The Continental Op continues his investigations, stirs up strife among the gangs, and tries to elude arrest himself as the dance of death lumbers to its bloody denouement. It is near impossible to keep an accurate bodycount through the course of the novel. Despite the carnage, the detective work is excellent, the intrigue is gripping, and the mysteries are satisfying.This book inspired three movies: Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo," the Clint Eastwood oater "A Fistful of Dollars," and the Bruce Willis prohibition era epic "Last Man Standing." I haven't seen "Yojimbo," but the Eastwood and Willis movies hardly compare to "Red Harvest" for complexity and character development. They accentuate the bloodshed and virtually ignore everything else.

Of all the books written by the chronological trio of Hammett, Chandler, and MacDonald, only Red Harvest seems as honest and truthful now as I am sure it did in 1939. Although Hammett lacks Chandler's writing flare and sarcasm, his style makes for fast-paced, edge of the seat reading. As his Continental Op escapes harrowing situation after another, I was left with a disbelief, but this novel is not about whether the Op could ruin an entire town with merely a scratch. It is instead a commentary on society, and on the cutthroat nature still evident in us all. In so many ways, this novel reminds me of Shirley Jackson's haunting story "The Lottery" because the evil in our world is within the system, and in each person. Just as the Op confesses to wanting to join the killing spree, Hammett has made us want to read about more killing. He dupes us into playing the Op's game. This novel is so much deeper than what can be read in the text. In his own way, he tells us to look out for a system corrupted by greed and a quest for power. Much like Chandler, Hammett always has a message. Heed this one readers, but enjoy the enchantment of this amazing novel.