Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic novel pits lone PI against the odds., September 10, 2002
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.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clearly Hammett's Best, May 28, 1999
By A Customer
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.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hammett's First Novel is a Staple of Hard-Boiled Fiction., February 24, 2004
"Red Harvest" was author Dashiell Hammett's first novel. The material was not entirely original; it first appeared in serial form in "Black Mask" magazine in 1927-1928 under the title "The Cleansing of Poisonville". Hammett reworked the story into novel form, and "Red Harvest" was published in 1929. This is also the first of Hammett's popular "Continental Op" novels, which feature an unnamed private detective employed by the Continental Detective Agency of San Francisco. "Red Harvest"'s narrator and veteran Continental operative defies any idea of a glamorous or attractive crime fighter. He's short, pot-bellied, alcoholic, and resolutely cynical. He's living in an immoral world, where success comes to those who fight fire with fire. Like all of Hammett's protagonists, he has little use for the law, but lives by a personal code to which he strictly adheres. That doesn't make him especially ethical, only principled. But Hammett's characters, like Hammett himself, are coping in their own way with the widespread corruption that ruled America's cities in the 1920s and 1930s."Red Harvest"'s opening paragraph is one of the best hooks I've ever read in a novel. It's fantastic. We are sucked into the mind of our narrator, the unnamed Continental operative, and we want only to read more about this man of such blunt wit. The Continental Op has been called to a town named Personville by the owner of the town's newspaper, Donald Willsson. He doesn't know what the job is, but before he can find out, the client is murdered. So the first order of business is to solve the murder. In doing so, our detective discovers how Personville got its nickname, Poisonville. Everything and everyone in this town is corrupt. Its citizens are ruled by bootleggers and low-lifes who retain their power through indiscriminate violence. Even the town's former boss, Elihu Willsson, a wealthy industrialist who was not above murder in his own day, is now reluctantly under the thumb of the new crop of thugs. Our detective takes offense at Poisonville's powers trying several times to assassinate him in the course of his murder investigation, so he decides to stay and clean up the place. Little did he expect that Poisonville's rampant bloodshed would poison him, as he is seduced by the town's murderous ways. It's surprising to me that Dashiell Hammett wrote "Red Harvest" years before "The Thin Man". "Red Harvest"'s style seems more developed and its characters better drawn than in the later novel. That's not to say that I don't like "The Thin Man". I actually prefer its more scandalous brand of cynicism. Hammett is always cynical, but sociopathic behavior is to be expected from the characters that inhabit Personville's landscape. They are criminals and police officers (remember, this is the 1920s). The undeniably sociopathic behavior of everyone in "The Thin Man" -from small time con men, to respectable bourgeois, to Park Avenue blue bloods- is like a slap in the face. And so is the book's shameless lack of justice. But perhaps Hammett just chose a different shock tactic in "Red Harvest". The book's greatest cynicism is in the ease with which the Continental Op is seduced into abandoning his own code of conduct when faced with the opportunity to murder without consequences. That's why they call it Poisonville. Fans of noir detective stories wont' want to miss "Red Harvest". There are enough hard-boiled one-liners to inspire glee in those who really enjoy them. Hammett's style is fluid and easy to read. And there is more than one mystery to be solved.
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