9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Leaving us in the dark, April 29, 2004
Dashiell Hammett hit gold with his rough-edged anti-heroes and shadowy plots. But he struck out in "Woman in the Dark," a tepid novella that originally appeared in "Liberty" magazine before vanishing for twenty years. Since this will be interesting only to Hammett completists, maybe it should have stayed lost.
A lovely young woman stumbles to a smalll house with an injured foot. It turns out the inhabitant of the house is Brazil, an ex-criminal who did time for killing a man in a brawl. A thug arrives to bring the girl, Luise, back to the man she is living with -- except Brazil punches him out. Now they're both in trouble... and in danger... and on the lam.
"Woman in the Dark" isn't a particularly thrilling thriller. Hammett's heart didn't seem to be in this tale; it's slow and wandering, and the grand showdown is somehow anticlimactic. What's more, it's very rushed -- it almost feels like Hammett scribbled it out with the intent of expanding it into a full-length novel.
Hammett's gritty, somewhat minimalist writing is a little awkward this time around. "One of the men pulled off his cap -- it was a gray tweed, matching his topcoat -- and..." is only one example of the unusually choppy style. But his sense of atmosphere is still unparalleled, with all the grime, grease and smoke of his urban backdrop.
The characterizations are sketchy at best. Brazil is much like Hammett's other anti-heroes, with a tough-guy attitude over some very intense feelings. Love interest Luisa is a walking paper doll, a typical exotic kept woman who falls for our anti-hero -- although it's never quite clear why they do fall in love.
"Woman in the Dark" is an unusually flat, sketchy novel by a classic mystery author. One of Hammett's few misfires, this is a curiosity but nothing worth getting excuted about.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lacks the zip, July 25, 2002
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.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A tough romantic thriller, April 1, 2000
By A Customer
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.
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