Book Review : Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett

The first outing for The Continental Op sees him visit the corrupt mining town of Personville. He arranges to meet a man called Don Willsson who will tell The Continental Op what is required of him in Personville.

The Continental Op arrives at Willsson’s house but he’s out according to Willsson’s wife. She then goes out and comes back with blood on her shoe. It transpires Willsson has been murdered, the first of many deaths in this book where few characters get throught to the end.

Once he’s solved the murder of Don Willsson, the Continental Op determines to clean things up in Personville by agitating the gangsters and the corrupt police to fight each other with the greedy bloodsucking officials getting cut down in their crossfire.

I lost count of how many people were shot dead and it really was helpful that Chapter 21 was entitled ‘The Seventeenth Murder.’