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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not Hammett's best, but still plenty good enough!, December 1, 2001
Of all the protagonists Dashiell Hammett created -- Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, Ned Beaumont -- the Continental Op, for my taste, is the most enduring and compelling. Professedly amoral, "only a hired hand with a hired hand's interest in your troubles," this 'middle-aged fatman' demands that you take him at face value . . . and yet Hammett's genius is such that you're pulled to look beyond that self-description, to look under the "calluses on the calluses" on his soul.The Op beat, bludgeoned and shot his way through countless short stories, several of which Hammett later "cannibalized" (to use Raymond Chandler's term for a process he himself would employ) into two novels, one of which is "The Dain Curse," originally serialized in Black Mask magazine before its book publication. Melodramatic in tone, ranging from San Francisco's Pacific Heights to the semi-fictional town of Quesada (an interesting blend of Monterey and Half Moon Bay, in actuality), the novel follows the Continental Op as he solves several seemingly disparate mysteries before he realizes that those "solutions" are bogus and that he can only get to the true bottom of matters and achieve a genuine resolution by "lifting" the "curse" which 20-year old Gabrielle Leggett is convinced dooms her. She has a drug habit. Through a mixture of cajolery and bullying, the Op sets out to cure her. And Hammett's true genius begins to show itself: Throughout the first half of the novel, Gabrielle is, frankly, insipid and easily dismissed. Yet once the Op begins to focus on her as the key to everything else, she emerges as a sympathetic and compelling individual, and this has everything to do with the question of motive: Is the Op simply helping her as the means to an end (i.e., his refusal to be manipulated into a false resolution), is he motivated rather by a refusal to allow her to be victimized any further, or . . . are his feelings not quite so impersonal as he claims? Tantalizingly, his statements to her and his subsequent comments at the novel's end are contradictory and -- in the latter case, at least to this writer's sensibilities -- not altogether convincing. Which, I'm completely convinced, are exactly as Hammett intended. Each reader is called upon to reach his or her own conclusion. Suffice to say, without spoiling anything here, that justice is ultimately done (and how!) and the Continental Op continues on in his -- supposedly -- cold-blooded way. A "sleuth" or "manhunter," to use his terms. A "thieftaker," to use the 18th century British expression. And yet, ever so much more. Whether he chooses to admit it or not. Ever so much more.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining but Unusually Vacuous for Hammett., April 15, 2004
"The Dain Curse" originally appeared as 4 serials in "Black Mask" magazine, 1928-1929, and was reworked and published as a novel shortly thereafter. The novel impresses me more strongly as a soap opera in three acts than a detective story. Yes, there is a detective, the always nameless Continental Op. And there is certainly a mystery. There are a lot of mysteries, in fact. But "The Dain Curse" is the most far-fetched of Dashiell Hammett's works that I've read, and the least cynical of his novels. I wouldn't call this book well-written, but it's a page-turner. The plot is so convoluted that the reader is even more anxious than usual to read to the end in order to find out what our detective will make of it. And that's the heart of the novel's problems: We keep reading because we are curious to know how the Op will unravel this messy, incomprehensible case. We don't keep reading because we are interested in the characters, the story, or the language. Those elements are far less intriguing than I have come to expect from Hammett. Perhaps it's because Hammett strayed from the world of gangsters and thugs that he knew best, but "The Dain Curse"'s conglomeration of religious cults, drug addiction, melodrama, and bourgeois murder just isn't credible on any level. The central female character in the book, Gabrielle, is more of a damsel in distress than a femme fatale, and she is rather unattractive, physically and intellectually. There's nothing wrong with these things, in themselves, but they typify "The Dain Curse"'s departure from Dashiell Hammett's traditional themes and style. Unfortunately, if this novel was an experiment, it wasn't a very successful one. But I don't deny that it's entertaining on a certain level. "The Dain Curse" is quite a jigsaw puzzle, even if it isn't a credible one. And it gives the reader an opportunity to see another side of the Continental Op, for better or worse. I don't recommend it to those not already familiar with Hammett's work, though, because it's distinctly atypical.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"Curse" strikes intermittently, March 14, 2004
Dashiell Hammett brought the noir detective into the limelight with "Maltese Falcon," but it wasn't the first or only novel he wrote about hard-edged, hard-boiled detectives. Among his early works was the Continental Op in "The Dain Curse," a scattered but interesting three-tier mystery.Diamonds have been stolen, and the Continental Op has been called in to find out what has happened. But he finds that the whole story that is given to him has a "wrong" feeling to it -- mysterious men, a diamond he finds on the ground. When the Op digs further, he finds a web of murder, jealousy and hate that spreads back over young Gabrielle Leggett's life. After the trauma of her father's murder, the Op takes Gabrielle to the Temple of the Holy Grail, a San Francisco cult. At first it seems like a slightly goofy but harmless little pseudo-religion -- until a hideous specter in the Op's room, and a murder that seems to have been committed by Gabrielle, shows that something sinister is lurking there. And finally, the "Dain curse" seemingly strikes again when Gabrielle's young husband is found dead... Before anyone knew about Sam Spade, Hammett was churning out pulp fiction about the Continental Op in his trademark spare, sharp prose. "The Dain Curse" feels like three loosely connected short stories -- only Gabrielle Leggett ties them together, and the idea of the "Dain curse" (which is never fully dealt with -- though it makes an enticing title) which supposedly kills everyone around Gabrielle. Hammett's writing is as dry and spare as always. However, the stories sometimes seem too short, especially the second one, which ends on a hurried note (we're only told of Gabrielle's marriage as a sort of postscript). And the types of stories are uneven: one is a smart mystery, one is a thriller with a freako cult, and one is more a character study. Gabrielle is hardly a compelling character at first; she's pretty helpless and dull. Hammett doesn't give her a lot of attention for the first and second stories. But she's given some good expansion in the final story, where her "dope" addiction is dealt with. At the same time, the seemingly amoral Op is given further depth. Though even he may not know it, the intense conversations in the last third show that he's a lot more than he seems. "The Dain Curse" is a somewhat uneven mix of lurid mystery and practiced, intelligent suspense. Hardly Hammett's best, but worth checking out.
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