Red Harvest

In the murky, deceitful Personville, one person stands out for their honesty. Before he meets her, the Op is warned about Dinah Brand. While few people trust her (or even like her), they agree that her honesty is refreshing. She wants one thing: money. As Robert Albury tells the Op, she is “so thoroughly mercenary, so frankly greedy, that there's nothing disagreeable about it” (26). Noonan echoes this sentiment, referring to Dinah as a “big-league gold-digger.”

In this way, Dinah inverts the misogynistic stereotype of women as interested solely in money. Most women, these men believe, try to hide their true intentions. In being open about this desire, she turns the misogynistic stereotype into an act of honest defiance, building her identity on the foundation of her discrimination. Dinah’s honesty contrasts with the behavior of men like Elihu, who are hiding what they really desire. 

Dinah may be honest about her desire but like almost everything and everyone in Personville, she occupies a morally gray area in which nothing is either truly good or bad. Dinah is transactional. Everything she does has a cost, and she wants to be paid. This extends to her morality. She is not above extortion or violence, particularly when it enriches her. She is not above emotional manipulation, but she assures herself that she is honest enough to cut ties with men like Albury as soon as they can no longer offer her what she wants. 

Dan Rolff is further evidence of Dinah’s murky morality. He suffers from debilitating tuberculosis, yet Dinah allows her sick friend to stay with her. This is not an act of altruism, however. Rolff is in love with Dinah and she bullies him. For Dinah, physical violence against a man is a way of mirroring the toxic masculine ethos of violence she sees all around her. By hitting Rolff in front of other men, she can assert her strength and power, mistreating him to make herself feel better. 

Dinah spends a lot of time with the Op. In him, she sees someone who can protect her and—through means such as advising her which bets to place—enrich her. Dinah tries to comfort the Op with laudanum when he is feeling anxious. When he is unconscious, however, she is swept up again in the battle between criminal men. She is killed accidentally in a scuffle between Reno and Whisper, part of an ongoing feud that she had hoped would enrich her. Reno stabs and kills Dinah. Her death thus reflects The Impacts of Male Violence upon the female population of Personville.

The Op is brought to Personville by Donald Willsson, only for Donald to be killed shortly after his arrival. A short time later, the Op meets Donald’s father, Elihu. In doing so, he receives an introduction to the history of Personville and why the town has become known as “Poisonville.” 

Elihu is rude, abrasive, and entitled. For decades, his mining company has made him the most powerful person in the city. To put down a strike, he unleashed the criminals on the city. He could not tolerate the strikers’ challenge to his power, so he turned to the criminal gangs for help. They betrayed him and, as a result, Personville was poisoned by corruption. Elihu resents this power-sharing arrangement with the gangs, not only because it limits his administrative grip on the city but because the uncomfortable alliance threatens his egotistic belief in his own goodness. 

Donald had threatened to publish information about the corruption in the city, even if this threatened to implicate his father. With Donald gone, Elihu wants revenge, so seeks to pay tribute to his murdered son by hiring the Op to finish Donald’s mission. Once his pain has subsided, however, and once the Op has identified Donald’s murderer, Elihu reneges on the deal. He tells the Op to return to San Francisco. Just like when he hired the criminals to put down the strikers, Elihu tries to tame the force that he has unleashed. Once again, he is not successful. His punishment is to see his power completely diminished by the forces he has unleashed.