"Red Harvest" is considered by many as the first Polar. the monolithic figure of the detective in the heart of the investigation is itself a profession character of faith "hard-boiled" harder, more determined, more implacable, you die.
Furiously modern in 1929, the work displays today's age but allows us to dive back into a vanished America, where censorship ensured that, where bootleggers made fortunes, where women were either fatal or subject where the "american way of life "had the lead in the buffet.
Too bad the novel tends to become repetitive and linear in its last part: you eventually detach from the plot against the accumulation of stiffs and narration is moving towards a fairly predictable end. As for social criticism, it remains purely superficial ultimately.
"Red Harvest" is a novel cold, violent and mechanics and we understand that Jean-Patrick Manchette Hammett has always regarded as the greatest as their literature share the same philosophy.
