Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest — Dashiell Hammett

Red Harvest is the first full novel by Dashiell Hammett, the author universally regarded as the father of hard boiled detective fiction. An enormous hit upon its publication, it has since become a classic of the detective genre. Time Magazine included Red Harvest in its 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005.  Narrated by Hammett's enigmatic detective known only as the Continental Op, Red Harvest finds the Op being summoned to the mining town of Personville (called Poisonville by the locals) by a newspaper publisher looking to rid the town of a pair of violent gangs originally hired to enforce a labor settlement. When the publisher is murdered before the Op can even arrive on the scene, he finds himself wrapped up in a murder investigation, a love affair, a gang war...and then becomes a murder suspect himself.  Filled with twists and turns, violence, betrayal, greed and corruption, Red Harvest was originally serialized in Black Mask magazine before being published as Hammett's first novel in 1929. It has since been hailed as one of the finest pieces of detective fiction ever written and the style, plot and characters have inspired dozens of films and television shows in the ensuing decades. Red Harvest is presented here in its original and unabridged format.