New Worlds

Reading Dashiel Hammett's The Dain Curse has served as a reminder that he was no slouch when it came to intricate plotting. I don't think it's actually possible to follow who's killing whom as you go along, things get so complicated. Rather, it's a matter of enjoying the unlikely action and then seeing if you can follow the explanatory chapters that sum it all up. An amazingly different kind of novel from Red Harvest also. The range of the four great novels (and, I suppose, five if you count The Thin Man) is remarkable. Unlike Chandler he never repeats himself, except for that undercurrent of the rottenness of it all. Even in that respect Hammett is inventing the whole noir genre.