The Dain Curse: Hammett’s Strangest Case

Sandwiched between the political corruption of Red Harvest and the cool cynicism of The Maltese Falcon, The Dain Curse is Hammett’s strangest novel: a case that starts with a supposedly cursed diamond and spirals through a religious cult, morphine addiction, and a family secret so tangled that Hammett’s own nameless detective, the Continental Op, spends much of the book simply trying to keep track of who’s lying to whom.

It’s less tightly constructed than its two siblings, and Hammett himself reportedly thought less of it — but it’s also the book where his signature move is clearest: refusing to let any character, including the supposed victims, be simply innocent. Everyone in a Hammett novel is playing an angle, and the detective’s only real advantage is that he’s honest about playing one too.

Together with Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon, it completes the trilogy that built the template for American noir.

Read The Hard-Boiled Trilogy →