I have always thought the Hammett wrote the most influention
hardboiled novel with "The Maltese Falcon" and that Chandler
the most influential body of hardboiled work with
Marlowe.
That being said, I am one of the few people I know who thinks
that most of Hammett's potboiler work--his long stories, his
pieced together novels--are inferior in quality to many of
those writers who came later--the MacDonalds, JDM and Ross,
and the early Parker stuff--and also inferior to his work
written as novels, like "The Glass Key," and "The Maltese
Falcon."
I never did like "The Thin Man," neither the book nor the
movie. It was too cozy for my taste, and when he started to
give everybody the same initial because he found a monagramed
handkerchief, I thought he was just being cute.
Chandler, even in his stories was cool and methodical,
working from a premise to a solution.
Hammett was just bang, bang, shoot 'em up, with a cozy like
gimick that solved all the problems.
Reading "Red Harvest" was like a bumpy ride on a
safari--sound and fury signifying nothing except a lot of
dead things, in Hammett's case, people.
That's my take on it, and I'll bet I am far in the minority
here, at least in my opinion of "Red Harvest."
Jack Bludis
===== Now: "The Big Switch," and "The Deal Killer" Coming in
June: "Shadow of the Dahlia" http://jackbludis.com/
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