Woman in the Dark: A Novel of Dangerous Romance

This is a brief story, about 75 pages, but packs in all of Hammett's hard-boiled best. The mysterious, beautiful woman appears one night, with a trail of trouble catching up to her. Our hero, if you could call him that, offers his help without knowing what help she needs. Her past catches up to her, his catches up to him, and hers catches up to him. He's sleaze but she trusts him, a little. His friends are sleaze but he trusts them, a little. The cops are sleaze, and nobody trusts them. You weren't looking for the Great American Novel, you were looking at Hammett. It's dark, moody, and gritty, as you expected. but the right people get something in the end. It's not the finest, but it's a godd evening's read. //wiredweird

Originally serialized in "Liberty" magazine in 1933, "Woman in the Dark" barely qualifies as a novella. It's more an extended short story. The book is subtitled "A Novel of Dangerous Romance", and some critics have suggested that this is Hammett's least cynical work in its view of love. I don't think it is, but it might be his most optimistic portrayal of love for one of his detectives. "Woman in the Dark" is romantic in its own hard-boiled way. A foreign woman, Luise Fischer, trying to leave her domineering lover, takes refuge at the home of a no-nonsense ex-con name Brazil. Her lover and his henchman try to coerce her to return, and Luise and Brazil are forced to flee together when the altercation turns nasty. "Woman in the Dark" really isn't a fully fleshed-out story. It feels like a vignette: Lots of texture. Interesting characters, about whom we learn almost nothing. It's the story of an incident and its aftermath among a small group of people. I enjoyed it. I would definitely recommend it to Hammett fans. But this is Hammett Lite. 3 1/2 stars. The Vintage Crime edition includes an inconsequential introduction by Robert B. Parker.

This pamphlet sized publication is really a short story which can easily be read in one sitting. It's about an ex-con and a mystery woman who meet one stormy night and are forced to take flight from the woman's rich boyfriend as well as the police. Hammett's craftsmanship as a writer is well demonstrated here.The dialogue is superb; crisp, uncomplicated and studded with 1930s slang. The narrative portion of the text is equally remarkable with sentence structure that can best be described as elegant in its simplicity. Hammet provides the exact amount of information necessary to move the story forward. No more, no less. Leaving to the reader's imagination the tasks of fleshing out the characters and supplying the individual backstories that have led up to the unfolding drama contained in this compelling and cogent work. Woman in the Dark is a great example of storytelling at its best.

Hammett's style is good enough that you do care about the two main characters. But something's missing. It is almost as if he was lacking interest in his own story. Maybe not. Whatever the case, it's worth reading just because it's Hammett. It tells the story of a guy who got a bad rap the first time around, and just a few weeks after getting out of jail, he finds himself in danger of going back. There's a feeling of hopelessness here and the ending seems a bit ambiguous. It's a good crime adventure short, but far from the best Hammett. It's still worth having in your collection.

This short novel was published originally in Liberty Magazine in three parts, and it is now in three chapters--each one reaching a climax that makes the reader quickly turn the page to finish the book at one reading. We have Hammett's hard-boiled protagonist--not a detective--but an attractive, very masculine ex-con named Brazil, and a world-weary, beautiful Swiss woman fleeing from the decadent world she now despises. The tension in the story derives both from the relationship between the two main characters and from their efforts to flee the police and the woman's pursuers. As always, Hammett's prose is marvellous, sharp, pointed, and even lyrical. This is the last piece of fiction he wrote before The Thin Man, and if you love Hammett, you must read this well-plotted and thrilling tale.