View source for Red Harvest

{{short description|1929 novel by Dashiell Hammett}}
{{other uses}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox book
| name         = Red Harvest
| image        = Red Harvest (1st ed cover).jpg
| caption      = Cover of the first edition
| alt          =
| author       = [[Dashiell Hammett]]
| illustrator  =
| cover_artist =
| country      = United States
| language     = English
| subject      =
| genre        = [[Detective fiction|Detective]]
| published    = February 1, 1929 ([[Alfred A. Knopf]])<ref name="projectGrh">{{cite web|title=Red Harvest (publishing information)|url=https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/hammettd-redharvest/hammettd-redharvest-00-h.html |publisher=Project Gutenberg |access-date=July 2, 2017}}</ref>
| media_type   = Print ([[hardcover]])
| awards       = 
| isbn         =
| followed_by  = [[The Dain Curse]]
| external_url = https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/dashiell-hammett/red-harvest
}}

'''''Red Harvest''''' (1929) is a novel by American writer [[Dashiell Hammett]]. The story is narrated by [[the Continental Op]], a frequent character in Hammett's fiction, much of which is drawn from his own experiences as an operative of the [[Pinkerton Detective Agency]] (fictionalized as the Continental Detective Agency).<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Serafin|editor1-first=Steven R.|editor2-last=Bendixen|editor2-first=Alfred|title=The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature|orig-year=1999|year=2003|publisher=Continuum|location=New York|page=264|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LyJqIfNPSgcC&pg=PA264|isbn=9780826417770}}</ref> The plot follows the Op's investigation of several murders in a corrupt Montana mining town, which had been taken over by gangs following  a labor dispute. Some of the novel was inspired by the [[Anaconda Road massacre]], a 1920 labor dispute in the mining town of [[Butte, Montana]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Panek|first=LeRoy Lad|title=Reading Early Hammett: A Critical Study of the Fiction Prior to 'The Maltese Falcon'|year=2004|publisher=MacFarland & Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/readingearlyhamm0000pane/page/122 122]|url=https://archive.org/details/readingearlyhamm0000pane|url-access=registration|isbn=9780786419623}}</ref>

''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' included ''Red Harvest'' in its 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005, noting that, in the Continental Op, Hammett "created the prototype for every sleuth who would ever be called 'hard-boiled.'"<ref>{{cite magazine | title = Time's Critics Pick the 100 Best Novels 1923 to the Present | author = Grossman, Lev |author2=Lacayo, Richard | url = http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20051021140441/http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/ | url-status = dead | archive-date = October 21, 2005 | magazine = Time | date = 2005-10-31 | access-date = 2008-10-19}}</ref> The [[Nobel Prize in Literature|Nobel Prize]]-winning author [[André Gide]] called the book "a remarkable achievement, the last word in atrocity, cynicism, and horror."<ref>{{cite magazine | title=Books: Gide Fad | magazine=Time | url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,774877,00.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724200955/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,774877,00.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=July 24, 2008 | date=1944-04-06 | access-date=2010-09-26}}</ref>

== Plot ==
The Continental Op is called to Personville (known as "Poisonville" to the locals) by the newspaper publisher Donald Willsson. Willsson had mailed the Continental Detective Agency a $5,000 check to retain their services, but Willsson is shot to death in an alley before the Op has a chance to meet with him. The Op meets Donald's wife, who is suspicious of why her husband has employed the Op. Mrs. Willsson leaves and is later seen near her husband's body immediately following his death. The Op begins to investigate Willsson's murder and meets with Willsson's father, Elihu Willsson, a local industrialist who has found his control of the city threatened by several competing gangs. Elihu had originally invited those gangs into Personville to help him impose and then enforce the end of a labor dispute. Elihu is also immediately certain that Mrs. Willsson is responsible for Donald's murder.

In addition to the $5,000 check from the late Donald Willsson, the Op gets another $5,000 certified check from Elihu Willsson to "clean up the city" and rid it of the gangs controlling it. The Op quickly identifies Donald's murderer as young bank teller Robert Albury, a murder that had nothing to do with gang activity or, as Elihu was certain of, Donald's wife. The murder mystery now sewn up, Elihu tries to get his money back and tells the Op to forget about taking down the gangs, but the Op insists he will follow through. While the Op had been investigating, the corrupt police chief Noonan had tried twice to have him gunned down, causing the Op to take a personal interest in the job.

In the meantime, the Op is spending time with Dinah Brand, a possible love interest of the late Donald Willsson and a [[Gun moll|moll]] for Max "Whisper" Thaler, a local gangster. The Op extracts information from Brand and Noonan, and increases tension in the city by leaking it to the warring parties. When the Op reveals that a bank robbery was staged by the cops and one of the gangs to discredit another gang, a gang war erupts.

The Op, disturbed by the slaughter he orchestrated, spends an evening of [[Blackout (drug-related amnesia)|blackout]] inebriation with Brand, who finds it all amusing. He wakes the next morning to find her stabbed to death with the ice pick he had handled the previous evening. No signs of forced entry are visible, and he can't even be sure he did not do the stabbing himself during his delirium. The Op becomes a suspect sought by the police for Brand's murder, and one of his fellow operatives, Dick Foley, leaves Personville because he is uncertain of the Op's innocence.

The Op, now wanted by the police, entices Reno Starkey, a gang lieutenant, to take on the last strong rival gang led by Pete the Finn. The gangs are whittled down by pipe bombs, arson, gun fights, and corrupt cops gunning down the survivors.

The Op tracks down Starkey, the only gang leader still alive. Starkey is bleeding from four gunshot wounds, having just killed his rival Whisper Thaler. Starkey reveals that he was the one who stabbed Brand, but because she had collided with the semiconscious Op he had looked like the culprit. Starkey later succumbs to his wounds in the hospital.

The corrupt police chief Noonan and the gang leaders are all dead. The Op blackmails Elihu Willsson, having obtained four love letters Elihu had sent to Dinah Brand. The Op gets Elihu to call the governor, who sends in the National Guard, declares martial law, and suspends the entire police force. Elihu Willsson gets back his town, as promised, although not in the way that he had anticipated. The Op returns to San Francisco, where the Old Man (the chief of the Continental Detective Agency's office) criticizes him.

== Serial publication ==
[[File:Black Mask November 1927 - Poisonville.jpg|thumb|November 1927 issue of ''[[Black Mask (magazine)|Black Mask]]'', featuring "The Cleansing of Poisonville"]]
''Red Harvest'' was originally serialized in four installments<ref>[http://histmyst.org/mysteries/hammett.html Checklist of Dashiell Hammett Fiction]</ref> in the [[pulp magazine]] ''[[Black Mask (magazine)|Black Mask]]'': 
*Part 1: "The Cleansing of Poisonville", ''Black Mask'', November 1927
*Part 2: "Crime Wanted—Male or Female", ''Black Mask'', December 1927
*Part 3: "Dynamite", ''Black Mask'', January 1928
*Part 4: "The 19th Murder", ''Black Mask'', February 1928

== Characters ==
{{Div col}}
* "The Continental Op", an operative from the San Francisco branch of the Continental Detective Agency
* Elihu Willsson, mining tycoon and "Czar of Poisonville"
* Donald Willsson, newspaper publisher and Elihu's son
* Mrs. Willsson, Donald's wife
* Lewis, Donald's assistant
* Noonan, the corrupt chief of police, whose brother Tim died two years before
* Max Thaler, alias "Whisper," a gambler and gangster
* Dinah Brand, Thaler's girlfriend, a tough woman with an uncanny allure to men
* Dan Rolff, Dinah's housemate and a "[[Tuberculosis|lunger]]"
* Lew Yard, gangster
* Reno Starkey, lieutenant in Yard's gang
* Pete the Finn, bootlegger
* Hank O'Mara, member of Starkey's gang
* Bill Quint, an organizer for the [[Industrial Workers of the World|IWW]]
* Robert Albury, bank teller and murderer of Donald Willsson
* Helen Albury, Robert's younger sister
* Charles Procter Dawn, ''criminal'' lawyer
* Bob MacSwain, a former policeman, murderer of Tim Noonan
* Mickey Linehan, a detective from the Continental
* Dick Foley, a detective from the Continental
* The Old Man, boss of the San Francisco branch of the Continental
{{Div col end}}

== Adaptations ==
Film critics [[David Desser]] and [[Manny Farber]], among others, have noted similarities between ''Red Harvest'' and the 1961 film ''[[Yojimbo (film)|Yojimbo]]'', directed by [[Akira Kurosawa]]. Other scholars, such as [[Donald Richie]], believe the similarities are coincidental.<ref>{{cite web | title = From ''Red Harvest'' to ''Deadwood'' | author = Barra, Allen | url = http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2005/02/28/hammett/index.html?pn=1 | work = [[Salon.com]] | date = 2005-02-28 | access-date = 2008-10-19 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081205032124/http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2005/02/28/hammett/index.html?pn=1 | archive-date = 2008-12-05 }}</ref> Kurosawa said{{fact|date=August 2025}} that a major source for ''Yojimbo'' was the ''[[film noir]]'' classic ''[[The Glass Key (1942 film)|The Glass Key]]'' ([[1942 in film|1942]]), an adaptation of Hammett's 1931 [[The Glass Key|novel of the same name]]. In ''Red Harvest'', ''The Glass Key'', and ''Yojimbo'', corrupt officials and businessmen stand behind and profit from the rule of gangsters.

In the early 1970s, Italian director [[Bernardo Bertolucci]] considered filming an adaptation of ''Red Harvest'' and wrote a first draft infused with political themes typical of his work. A short while after, he wrote a second draft that was more faithful to Hammett's story. For the role of the Op he considered [[Robert Redford]], [[Jack Nicholson]] (who had played a hard-boiled detective in [[Roman Polanski]]'s neo-noir film ''[[Chinatown (1974 film)|Chinatown]]''), and [[Clint Eastwood]] (who had played the Op-inspired "[[Man with No Name]]" in Sergio Leone's ''[[Dollars Trilogy]]''). At some point, Bertolucci discussed this project with [[Warren Beatty]] in [[Rome]]. In 1982, Bertolucci moved to [[Los Angeles]] to begin production, but the project was shelved.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

[[Donald E. Westlake]] wrote an unproduced screenplay adapting ''Red Harvest'', which changed the story considerably to refocus the ending on the murder of Donald Willsson; Westlake felt that having the solution of the mystery come so early in the novel made the Op's continued involvement hard to justify.<ref name="CrimeReads2018">{{cite web |url=https://crimereads.com/what-i-learned-from-donald-e-westlakes-letters/ |title=The Mind of Donald E. Westlake: The Letters, Books, and Films of a Crime Legend |last=Stahl |first=Levi |date=2018-05-29 |website=CrimeReads |publisher= |access-date=2023-05-29}}</ref>

Critics have noted elements of ''Red Harvest'' in the 1996 [[Bruce Willis]] film ''[[Last Man Standing (1996 film)|Last Man Standing]]'' in which a man arrives in a corrupt town and manipulates a war between rival gangs.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kolakowski |first1=Nick |title=The Strange Cinematic Afterlife of 'Red Harvest' |url=https://crimereads.com/the-strange-cinematic-afterlife-of-red-harvest/ |website=CrimeReads |access-date=12 November 2025}}</ref> 

As of 2024, [[Scott Frank]] and [[Megan Abbott]] are writing a script for ''Red Harvest'' for [[A24]].<ref>"The Ventriloquist," ''The New Yorker'', 1 & 8 January 2024.</ref>

== In popular culture ==

===Film===
While [[Akira Kurosawa]] stated that a major source for the plot for ''[[Yojimbo]]'' was the 1942 classic ''[[The Glass Key (1942 film)|The Glass Key]]'', an adaptation of [[Dashiell Hammett|Hammett]]'s 1931 novel ''[[The Glass Key]]'', it has been noted by some critics that the overall plot of ''Yojimbo'' is closer to that of Hammett's ''Red Harvest''.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Desser|first=David|title=Towards a Structural Analysis of the Postwar Samurai Film|journal=Quarterly Review of Film Studies|year=1983|volume=8|issue=1|page=33|publisher=Redgrave Publishing Company|doi=10.1080/10509208309361143|type=Print|issn=0146-0013}}</ref> In [[David Carradine]]'s autobiography, he recalls a conversation with [[Roger Corman]] in which Corman claims that Kurosawa himself told his friends that ''Yojimbo'' was a retelling of ''Red Harvest''.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20120610051027/http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~bjackson/silverbullets.htm</ref>

The [[Coen brothers]]' film ''[[Blood Simple]]'' (1984) takes its title from a line in ''Red Harvest'' in which the Op tells Brand the escalating violence has affected his mental state: "This damned burg's getting me. If I don't get away soon, I'll be going blood-simple like the natives." The Coens' film ''[[Miller's Crossing]]'' (1990) employs stylistic and narrative elements of Hammett's ''Red Harvest,'' ''The Glass Key,''  and several of Hammett's shorter works.<ref>{{cite book |last=Korte |first=Peter |author2=Seesslen, Georg  |title=Joel & Ethan Coen |year=1999 |publisher=Titan Books |location=London |page=96 |isbn=978-1-84023-097-0}}</ref>  Additionally, both protagonists speak the line "What's the rumpus?".

The dialogue and plot of director [[Rian Johnson]]'s debut feature, ''[[Brick (film)|Brick]]'', was inspired by the novels of Dashiell Hammett, particularly ''Red Harvest''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Home Video of the Week: 'Brick': Rian Johnson Makes It New|url=http://www.ludicworks.com/home-video-of-the-week-brick/|website=Ludic Works}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Rain Johnson|url=https://www.avclub.com/rian-johnson-1798209334|website=The A.V. Club|date=19 April 2006 }}</ref>

===Literature===
Science-fiction writer [[David Drake]] has said that he took the plot of his novel ''The Sharp End'' (1993) from ''Red Harvest''.<ref>{{cite web | last = Drake | first = David | title = David Drake's FAQ | year = 2004–2008 | url = http://www.david-drake.com/faq.html | access-date = 2008-11-16 | archive-date = December 6, 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081206091748/http://david-drake.com/faq.html | url-status = dead }}</ref>

===Television===
In ''The Aurora Teagarden Mysteries'' Season 1 episode 10, "A Game of Cat and Mouse", ''Red Harvest'' is quoted as is ''The Maltese Falcon''.

In ''[[Bosch (TV series)|Bosch]]'' Season 5 episode 19, "Creep Signed His Kill", Crate and Barrel plan to see a double bill of ''Yojimbo'' and ''A Fistful of Dollars'' which they describe as ''Red Harvest'' adaptations".

== Further reading ==
* {{Cite journal | last = Breu | first = Christopher | title = Going blood-simple in Poisonville: Hard-boiled masculinity in Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest | journal = [[Men and Masculinities]] | volume = 7 | issue = 1 | pages = 52–76 | doi = 10.1177/1097184X03257449 | date = July 2004 | s2cid = 144998130 }}

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

==External links==
*{{commonscat-inline|Red Harvest (1929, Hammett)|''Red Harvest''}}
* {{wikisource-inline|Red Harvest (1929)|''Red Harvest''|single=true}} (1929 Grosset & Dunlap edition)
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/dashiell-hammett/red-harvest}}
* {{FadedPage|id=20170231|name=Red Harvest}}
* {{librivox book | title= Red Harvest |  author= Dashiell Hammett}}
* [https://www.imdb.com/list/ls063177664/ Complete guide to ''Red Harvest''/''Yojimbo'' adaptations/remakes] on [[IMDb]]

{{Dashiell Hammett}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Red Harvest}}
[[Category:1929 American novels]]
[[Category:Alfred A. Knopf books]]
[[Category:American detective novels]]
[[Category:Hardboiled crime novels]]
[[Category:Novels by Dashiell Hammett]]
[[Category:Novels set in company towns]]
[[Category:Works originally published in Black Mask (magazine)]]
[[Category:Fiction about gun violence]]