Red Harvest, Part 2

Tea, Tonic & Toxin

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Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett (1929) marked Hammett’s transition from short stories to novels. His portrayal of the Continental Op as a “hard-boiled” detective eventually became a prototype for many detective stories to come. A former detective, Hammett knew his stuff.

Read: Buy it used or on Amazon. (Reading time: ~4 hours)

Reflect: Check out the conversation starters below.
A+ Detective Work

“What kind of gunman would use a .32 [to kill Donald Willsson]?” (Albury used the bank gun; he knew about certified check; he called Mrs. Willsson and Whisper.)

“[Tim Noonan] didn’t say Whisper. I’ve heard women call Thaler Max, but I’ve never heard a man here call him anything but Whisper. Tim didn’t say Max. He said MacS—the first part of MacSwain—and died before he could finish it.”

The old man laughed savagely and began blustering again. …

I laughed at him. Now I had it. The old boy was scared stiff. Fright was the something behind his clowning. That was why he blustered, and why he wouldn’t let them take the body away. He wanted it there to look at, to keep panic away, visible proof of his ability to defend himself. I knew where I stood.
The Op’s Goal: Harvest

The Op’s job is technically over after he figures out that Albury murdered Donald (roughly 1/3 the way through the book). Yet the Op decides to stay in town to clean up the city. The word “harvest” is used metaphorically to refer to the Continental Op’s retributive and diabolical plan to turn everyone against each other.

“I don’t like the way Poisonville has treated me. I’ve got my chance now, and I’m going to even up. … You want to be let alone. There was a time when I wanted to be let alone. If I had been, maybe now I’d be riding back to San Francisco. But I wasn’t. Especially I wasn’t let alone by that fat Noonan. He’s had two tries at my scalp in two days. … Now it’s my turn to run him ragged, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Poisonville is ripe for the harvest. It’s a job I like, and I’m going to it.” (Op to Dinah)
The Op’s Plan: Turn the Thugs Against One Other

“Personville had only some forty thousand inhabitants. It shouldn’t be hard to spread news. Ten o’clock found me out spreading it.”

Noonan says: “Everybody’s killing everybody. Where’s it going to end? I’m sick of this butchering. I can’t stand any more of it.” The Op manipulates Noonan, suggesting a “peace conference out of which at least a dozen killings ought to grow.” Noonan, Elihu, Whisper, Pete the Finn, and Reno Starkey attend. Elihu suggests a frank conversation “without turning Personville into a slaughterhouse.”

“I’ve got to have a wedge that can be put between Pete and Yard, Yard and Noonan, Pete and Noonan, Pete and Thaler …. If we can smash things up enough—break the combination—they’ll have their knives in each other’s backs, doing our work for us.”

“[E]verybody sat around and behaved and watched everybody else while I juggled death and destruction.” (20.32)

Is the Op cleaning up Personville, or is he complicit in poisoning Personville? Is he a hero? An antihero? Something else altogether?
The Fascinating Femme Fatale

A femme fatale (“deadly woman”) is attractive, aggressive, and sexually provocative. In Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett, Dinah uses her charms to serve her own interests, but Hammett complicates her in surprising ways. Dinah has lots of “boyfriends,” including the narrator, but there’s zero sexual tension

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