Red Harvest

Red Harvest (1929), a detective novel by American author Dashiell Hammett, is loosely based on the Anaconda Road massacre, a 1920 labor dispute that escalated after a mining company fired upon its own miners who were on strike, wounding sixteen men and killing another. In 2005, Time magazine named Red Harvest one of the 100 best novels of the twentieth century.

The story opens as Donald Wilsson, a newspaper publisher in the mining town of Personville, calls upon an unnamed detective who is also the narrator of the book. The detective is only ever referred to as the Continental Op because he is a member of the Continental Detective Agency, a group loosely based on the real-life Pinkerton Detective Agency of which Hammett himself was an operative. The Continental Op arrives in Personville—referred to by locals as "Poisonville"—and makes plans to meet with Wilsson. Wilsson's wife answers the door in a green dress and green shoes. She tells the Continental Op that Wilsson is running late and drives off after being summoned to a phone call. When the wife returns 45 minutes later, there's still no sign of her husband. There is, however, what appears to be blood on the wife's green shoes.

Later that night, the Continental Op learns from a crowd at City Hall that Donald Wilsson is dead. He also learns about the history of Personville from Bill Quint. Quint tells him that Donald's father, industrialist Elihu Wilsson, had run the town for decades without incident until World War I, when the miners that were the lifeblood of the town's industry decided to go on strike. Elihu hired some thugs to suppress the unhappy workers in an event mirrored by the Anaconda Road massacre cited above. However, the gunmen blackmailed Elihu, and ever since, Elihu has been a puppet for four immensely corrupt individuals who are really the ones in charge: bootlegger Pete the Finn, Sheriff Noonan, bail bondsman Lew Yard, and gambler Max "Whisper" Thaler. All are conceivable suspects in Donald Wilsson's murder, as Donald had been working to expose their misdeeds in an article for the local Herald newspaper.



The Continental Op's investigation brings him into close contact with a number of Personville's underworld figures, including Whisper's girlfriend, Dinah Brand. The Op surmises that Noonan is trying to frame Dinah and Whisper for Donald's death. Meanwhile, another dead body surfaces, this time at Elihu's house. The man is Yakima Shorty, a gangster working for Thaler who apparently has been shot by Elihu in self-defense. However, the Continental Op still doesn't believe Thaler is the killer. Therefore, as Noonan closes in on Thaler, the Continental Op buys some time to find the real killer by allowing Thaler to escape Noonan's clutches.

The real killer, the Continental Op discovers, is a cashier at the local bank, Robert Albury, who was involved in a scheme to scam $5,000 from Donald. The Continental Op's work is far from over, however. Earlier, Elihu had paid the Continental Op $10,000 to clean up the town. Somebody is clearly not happy about the Continental Op's meddling because gunshots are fired in his direction one night outside his hotel. The violence continues as a young boxer, Bush, is stabbed to death after he refuses to take a fall in a match against Kid Cooper. All this time, the Continental Op is engaged in a romantic affair with Dinah, Thaler's girlfriend, making things even more dangerous for the detective.

Perhaps worrying about her own self-preservation should Thaler find out about the affair, Dinah informs the Continental Op that Max murdered a man named Tim some years ago and that a policeman, MacSwain, helped cover it up, making it look like a suicide. The Continental Op convinces Tim's ailing wife, Myrtle, to sign an affidavit that fingers Thaler as Tim's murderer.



All this digging by the Continental Op is designed to turn the four powerful corrupt men against one another, and it works—however, not without consequences. Dinah is stabbed to death with an ice pick, and the Continental Op is framed for her death. In response, the Continental Op convinces a lower-level mobster, Reno Starkey, to rally his men to take down Pete the Finn and Whisper Thaler in an assault that includes arson, bombings, street fights, and shoot-outs. After the dust settles, a mortally wounded Starkey admits to the Continental Op that he is Dinah's killer.

With the gang leaders all dead, including the enabling Sheriff Noonan, the Continental Op calls in the National Guard to declare martial law in Personville. In the end, Elihu gets his town back but not without significant chaos and bloodshed. The Continental Op returns to San Francisco where his boss chews him out for his unorthodox approach.

Red Harvest is a chilling and cynical look at how organized crime gains footholds in company towns like Personville, where corruption spreads and thrives like a virus.