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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30005.Red_Harvest?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Red Harvest" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168050300m/30005.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30005.Red_Harvest?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Red Harvest</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16927.Dashiell_Hammett">Dashiell Hammett</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9868853?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 3 of 5 stars "Here's how she stacks up. Pete's throwed in with McGraw. That lines coppers and beer mob up against me and Whisper. But hell! Me and Whisper are busier trying to put the chive in each other than bucking the combine. That's a sour racket. While we're tangling, them bums will eat us up."
 
 This is a masterpiece of crime fiction. If any book ever got the language right, this one did. This work is plot heavy (to put it lightly) and by the time you thought you'd figured out which thug (or copper) went with which crime, that thug was lying in a pool of blood somewhere. I couldn't figure out who killed who in this bloodbath, or why half the time, but The Continental Op (our nameless hero) somehow always seemed to know. And it seems he really didn't care why either...he became so involved in this hallucinogenic nightmare, that he started to stay involved just for kicks (going blood simple he calls it). In this classic, he pits bad guys against bad guys in order to clean up Personville (Poisonville), a politically corrupt mining town.
 
 This novel is screaming for a great film adaptation. The scene, with the rigged boxing match, I felt like I was already watching it when I was reading it.
 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/124482?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Alison's review
rating:

bookshelves: alltime100novel, classics, crime-fiction
recommended for: noir fans
status: Read in December, 2007

"Here's how she stacks up. Pete's throwed in with McGraw. That lines coppers and beer mob up against me and Whisper. But hell! Me and Whisper are busier trying to put the chive in each other than bucking the combine. That's a sour racket. While we're tangling, them bums will eat us up."

This is a masterpiece of crime fiction. If any book ever got the language right, this one did. This work is plot heavy (to put it lightly) and by the time you thought you'd figured out which thug (or copper) went with which crime, that thug was lying in a pool of blood somewhere. I couldn't figure out who killed who in this bloodbath, or why half the time, but The Continental Op (our nameless hero) somehow always seemed to know. And it seems he really didn't care why either...he became so involved in this hallucinogenic nightmare, that he started to stay involved just for kicks (going blood simple he calls it). In this classic, he pits bad guys against bad guys in order to clean ...more

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