6/23/2023 0 Comments Hammett the dain curse![]() ![]() Only slowly does The Dain Curse, also, like Red Harvest, unravel into a murder fest… A back storyĮarly on we discover that Leggett the scientist is not at all who he pretends to be. We find him rooting through grass outside the burgled house, then interviewing various witnesses and suspects. The Continental Detective Agency is asked to investigate by the insurance company and our friend, the Continental Op, is assigned the case. The Dain Curse starts out much more restrained and sober, more like a traditional crime story: research scientist Leggett has borrowed some diamonds from a merchant because he thinks he might be able to improve the look and appearance of sub-standard stones. ![]() The red in the harvest is a harvest of blood almost everyone dies, maybe it should have been titled The Slaughterhouse. In retrospect, Hammett’s first novel, Red Harvest, seems like a delirious fantasy: an entire town populated only by rival gangs of gangsters and their molls and armies, set at loggerheads and wiping each other out in a mounting frenzy of violence. ![]() ![]() You’ve got to sit down to all the facts you can get and turn them over and over till they click.’ You don’t catch murderers by amusing yourself with interesting thoughts. ![]()
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