I recently came upon the last book my Dad was reading before he died. It was the Library of America edition of five of Dashiell Hammett’s novels. His bookmark was at the first page of The Maltese Falcon. Not sure if he had read the previous stories in the book.
The first novel was Red Harvest, and I remember hearing that it was good.
So why am I going to talk about it here on a Sword & Sorcery blog?
Well, there are a lot of great writers of S&S, and one of my favorites is Leigh Brackett – though technically she was Sword & Planet. But she had an economy of language that was hard-boiled, and she got it from Hammett and Chandler. It is something I try to emulate in my fiction. Thus, in a roundabout way, Hammett is an influence on S&S – though a lot of purists would cry foul.
Anyway, when I picked up the book, I knew I had to read it. And it is something else.
Originally published in multiple parts as separate short stories, Hammett edited them together to form a novel. It has been on some official list of 100 Greatest American Novels according to Wikipedia – and it should be.
The action is relentless. As soon as the unnamed narrator (he was popularly known at the time as the Continental Op, since he worked for the Continental Detective Agency, a stand-in for Pinkerton’s where Hammett worked for a while) shows up in town, the person who hired him is knocked off before they can even speak. Then the narrator goes to work.
A lot of it is dated, particularly in phrasing and slang. But again, given the economy of the language, you understand easily what is happening and what is meant. The Op wastes no time in digging up information, and the bodies start to pile up. Sometimes it’s a gut punch to the reader, as you fell sympathy for people who are either dead-end or caught up in events beyond their control.
The descriptions are terse but concise, particularly of the characters’ appearance. The action is fast and sometimes briefly confusing, but like Robert E. Howard, you get swept along in the intensity and it works. The characterization is brilliant, painted with a few choice words and actions.
It is not really elaborated upon, but this took place during prohibition (the novel came out in 1929, and the stories were actually published as early as 1927). And everybody is drinking. Every time the Op visits another character – particularly one of the women – the booze flows. In one scene, they are drinking at 3 or so in the morning before they get into laudanum.
I can’t recommend the book enough. It reads fast and powerful. And while it came out 90 years ago and reflects those times strongly, the human element of trying to survive against steep odds is timeless. I’m glad I have four more to go through in this collection.
Yes, that is an affiliate link above. I promise to buy some gin and lemon juice with the proceeds – but I do draw the line at laudanum.
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