Author : Dashiell Hammett
Hold onto you breath, as I present you the masterpiece of noir fiction!!
Meh.
I mean, Raymond Chandler (noir fiction champion) obviously adores Hammett. But that doesn't mean we have to agree 100%. Or maybe i haven't quite acquire the taste for noir books.
Yes, I am taking another English course. Crime Fiction. Hence, Hammett...
Background layout so as to not confuse you why I am so amateur in commenting about the book (one might argue I really am still amateur and yes I agree, you caught me).
So noir fiction differs from the detective fiction in the sense that it is not as clear cut and the detective doesn't necessarily be innocent like Holmes or Poirot that we usually read about. This is why it is called noir, which means black in French, which signifies that the story will be somewhat twisted and goes against the lines of the normal genre fiction type of books. So you get the gist of it.
Red Harvest is about a detective from the Continental Detective Agency, called to Personville by someone who was murdered right from the start. The Op (detective) sets to clear Personville/Poisonville of its corruption and gangs and basically make the city clean again. What makes him noir is that he pitches the big bosses of town against each other as means to effectively clean Poisonville. While all this is going on there will be multiple dozens of characters to confuse you and yes, multiple murders to make this novel more different than our ol' friend, detective fiction.
Yes, it is harder to keep track of characters (mind, I read a lot of action novels, I know this) and yes, it's storyline makes me annoyed and feeling like murdering someone (oh no, effects of the murdering!) but it is a good book, nonetheless.
If you want cobwebs to be intricate, might as well embroil yourself with Hammett.
Rating : 8/10
I must remind readers that ratings are totally biased towards my feelings.
