Edition: Avenel Books, 1980
Review number: 545
With the same first person narrator and style as The Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett's second novel starts out with a feeling of familiarity. Many aspects are similar (the level of violence, for example), but The Dain Curse is a far more complex piece of writing. Three linked sets of murders take place and arae investigated through the book, with Gabrielle Leggett at their centre. She believes herself cursed, bound to do evil, by the taint of the Dain family blood inherited from her mother.
The second set of murders take place at the headquarters of a San Francisco cult, and the combination of this with the idea of the curse produces quite an eerie atmosphere, despite the best efforts of the hard-headed narrator. Hammett expertly juggles all the plot elements to continually produce plausible explanations for what is happening - or at least ones which seem plausible for a few pages - until the truth is revealed in the very last chapter. An excellent mystery and an excellent thriller.
Showing posts with label Continental Op. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Continental Op. Show all posts
Monday, 24 July 2000
Tuesday, 27 June 2000
Dashiell Hammett: Red Harvest (1928)
Edition: Avenel Books, 1980
Review number: 532
Of Hammett's five completed novels, Red Harvest is the simplest. Told from the point of view of a hard boiled private detective from San Francisco, it is about a none-too-clean campaign to destroy the out of hand corruption in the town of Personville, known to those familiar with it as Poisonville.
There are a large number of murders in Red Harvest, as the narrator stirs up the various factions in the town - bootleggers, corrupt police, gangsters, politicians - to all out warfare, to reach the point where all sides are weakened and outside authority can take over.
Aside from the violence, it is the moral bankruptcy of all concerned which is the major feature of the novel. Killing breeds more killing, produces a callous indifference to the effects of murder, and sometimes an addiction to violent death.
Much of what became the stock in trade of Hammett and later thriller writers is present in Red Harvest, albeit in crude form: the tough, anti-heroic central character, the violent world of gangsters, political corruption, the beautiful woman who has an ambiguous relationship with all sides in the conflict.
Review number: 532
Of Hammett's five completed novels, Red Harvest is the simplest. Told from the point of view of a hard boiled private detective from San Francisco, it is about a none-too-clean campaign to destroy the out of hand corruption in the town of Personville, known to those familiar with it as Poisonville.
There are a large number of murders in Red Harvest, as the narrator stirs up the various factions in the town - bootleggers, corrupt police, gangsters, politicians - to all out warfare, to reach the point where all sides are weakened and outside authority can take over.
Aside from the violence, it is the moral bankruptcy of all concerned which is the major feature of the novel. Killing breeds more killing, produces a callous indifference to the effects of murder, and sometimes an addiction to violent death.
Much of what became the stock in trade of Hammett and later thriller writers is present in Red Harvest, albeit in crude form: the tough, anti-heroic central character, the violent world of gangsters, political corruption, the beautiful woman who has an ambiguous relationship with all sides in the conflict.
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