Red Harvest
Book description
Detective-story master Dashiell Hammett gives us yet another unforgettable read in Red Harvest: When the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty--even if that meant taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Red Harvest as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
It would be obscene to read this on a Kindle. This early Dashiell Hammett novel has to be read in paperback, the older a copy you can find, the better.
It has everything a great pulp novel should have; murder, crooked cops, gangs, and a rumpled too-honest-for-his-own-good hero. What I love about this book is how Hammett uses his own experience working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency (who were basically hired thugs) and a real historical event (a labor dispute in Montana that resulted in several deaths) to weave a solid crime novel.
From David's list on the 1920s with healthy skepticism of American values.
The plot grabs you and will not let go. An operative of the Continental Detective Agency is sent to a small town to meet with the editor of the local newspaper; when he arrives, the editor has been murdered the night before. The detective's investigations stir up rivalries between two criminal gangs, leading to a full-out gang war. The plot is intense and has been adapted to film three times, in three film genres: as samurai classic Yojimbo [1961] by Akira Kurosawa, as 'spaghetti Western' A Fistful of Dollars [1964] directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, and as…
From G.E.'s list on hardboiled noir detective mystery stories.
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