48 pages • 1 hour read
Red Harvest
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Chapters 15-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary: “Cedar Hill Inn”
The following day, two “good operatives” named Mickey Linehan and Dick Foley arrive in Personville. They are detectives from San Francisco; the Op has asked them to come to town to help with his anti-corruption mission.
They mention that the head of their company, referred to as the Old Man, wants to know more about what is happening, but the Op is reluctant to share details until he has completed his mission. The Op assigns them jobs: Mickey will trail Pete the Finn and Dick will trail Lew Yard. The Op wants to sow discord between the corrupt rulers of the town so that they turn on one another.
The Op visits City Hall to meet with Noonan. By this time, Noonan has recruited Tony Agosti and Jerry Hooper, members of Whisper’s gang who escaped alongside him. Jerry, the rumors suggest, is the man who “put the knife in Ike Bush” (118). Noonan believes that Whisper is hiding at the abandoned Cedar Hill Inn on the outer limits of the town. He summons the entire police force to arrest Whisper. The Op accompanies them to the motel in squad cars loaded with guns and ammunition.
At the Cedar Hill Inn, the police officers surround the place where they believe Whisper is hiding. They unload their weapons for several long minutes. When the shooting finally stops, they enter to find barrels of bootlegged alcohol. The barrels are filled with bullet holes and the drink is pouring out onto the bodies of four dead men.
On closer inspection, the dead men are “foreign-looking men in laborers’ clothes” rather than wanted criminals (122). Noonan receives a message: Someone has robbed First National Bank. Whisper may be behind the robbery, he suspects, so he orders everyone back into town.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Exit Jerry”
Six men robbed the First National Bank, the Op learns. Among them was Jerry Hooper. As the robbers escaped in a car, Lieutenant McGraw shot at them. He killed Jerry in the process.
The Op returns to his hotel room to discover that Dinah Brand has visited him. Dinah tries to convince the Op to pay her for information about Whisper. He declines. Dinah responds with the suggestion that the Op should take her out that evening. The Op receives a telephone call from Mickey: Pete the Finn and Lew Yard both visited Elihu, he says. The Op would like to know what was “being said up at old Elihu’s house” (129).
Chapter 17 Summary: “Reno”
The Op takes Dinah up on her offer. When he picks her up, she is wearing a rose-beige dress. Before they can have fun, however, Dinah’s mood sours due to the news that her efforts to frame Whisper for Tim’s murder have amounted to nothing. Increasingly paranoid, she does not want to leave the house. She is afraid for her life. The Op offers to stay inside and cook her dinner instead. Amid their fun evening, Dinah is struck by the sudden urge to attend a party held in Reno Starkey’s honor. Reno has just been released from prison, she says, after being arrested for robbing a jewelry store.
The Op takes Dinah to the Silver Arrow, where the party is being held. Before they can enter, a series of gunshots rings out. Reno emerges from the building at speed and Dinah calls to him. Dinah drives them away as quickly as she can, as Reno explains that a group of “uninvited guests” caused a scene at his party.
They drive out to an empty shack. Reno offers to park the car but instead drives away, leaving Dinah and the Op stranded. The Op is cautious about staying at any shack that is associated with Reno, so he suggests that they camp outside. They watch as the same uninvited guests search the empty shack for Reno, then leave. The Op and Dinah return and spend the night in the shack, which is now riddled with bullet holes.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Painter Street”
After choosing not to eat from the tinned foods in the shack, Op and Dinah walk to a nearby farmhouse. There, they find a boy who agrees to drive them back into Personville. After calling the Op “a damned double-crossing something or other” (141), Dinah gives him Lew Yard’s address. The Op finds Dick standing outside the house, keeping watch. The Op tells Dick to go to the Willsson house instead, as Whisper may be hiding there. Back at his hotel, he has a telegram from his boss, demanding a full report.
Sometime later, the Op arrives at City Hall. There, Noonan tells him that someone has shot Lew Yard just as Yard was leaving his house. Noonan is “sick of this killing” (142). As well as Lew Yard, he notes, numerous men died at the Silver Arrow. He believes that they all worked for Yard. Noonan seems to be in poor physical shape. The Op shares his belief that Whisper is hiding at the Willsson house. He tells Noonan to call a meeting at Elihu Willsson’s home at 9 pm.
Chapter 19 Summary: “The Peace Conference”
That night, everyone convenes at the Willsson house for a “peace conference.” Whisper, Pete the Finn, Elihu, Reno, and Noonan all gather, as does the Op. Elihu speaks to the attendees. He wants to end the “insane killing” in the town and forge a peace agreement. The Op speaks, making an effort to turn the corrupt men against one another. He tells them what he knows: Noonan has been trying to frame Whisper for Tim’s murder, even though he knows that the real killer was MacSwain.
Over the previous days, the Op says, Noonan has been lying. He pretended that he was responding to a tip-off about Whisper hiding at Cedar Hill Inn, but really he was creating a diversion to allow the bank to be robbed. Noonan is working with Reno to rob the bank and frame Whisper for the crime. In doing so, Reno hopes to take over Yard’s criminal organization. The murder of Jerry Hooper was staged; he was killed earlier, and his body was dumped at the scene to incriminate Whisper.
Reno’s release caused Yard to send his men to visit Reno, to make sure that Reno stayed in line. Reno killed Yard in response, the Op believes. The Op reaches the end of his speech. He knows that they are likely to immediately turn on one another, just as he had planned. The men storm out, one by one, having settled nothing.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Laudanum”
After the meeting at the Willsson house, the Op returns to Dinah. She receives a telephone call from Reno, who tells her that someone has killed Noonan outside Noonan’s own house. Whisper is the primary suspect. All this killing, the Op tells Dinah, is in danger of turning him “blood-simple.” He lists the 16 people who have been killed in the last week and he is horrified by how exhilarating the entire situation feels to him. He feels partly responsible, as he did nothing to calm the tension between the town’s powerful, corrupt forces. Instead, he stoked the tensions by lying that Noonan knew the truth about Tim’s death. The Op knew that Whisper would be angry at Noonan for trying to frame him, and he suspected that Whisper would retaliate. This makes him partially responsible for Noonan’s death, he reasons, and the supposed peace conference will likely lead to even more violence. The Op has successfully turned the men against one another.
He is upset and Dinah consoles him, claiming that there was no other way to deal with the corruption in the town. This does nothing to improve the Op’s mood as they drink gin. In her kitchen, Dinah finds a bottle of laudanum that Rolff uses for his medical condition. The Op mixes it into his drink and feels the sleep overtaking him.
Chapter 21 Summary: “The Seventeenth Murder”
After drinking the laudanum, the Op dreams about a veiled woman. He cannot remember her name, though he is sure that she is important. She calls out “fire” and, as fire engines arrive, she vanishes. In his dream, the Op wanders in search of her, only to find her in the lobby of his hotel. When she kisses him, the Op feels the other people watching him.
In a second dream, the Op finds himself in an unfamiliar city on the hunt for a hated enemy. He has a knife in his hand as he chases the man up a staircase inside a tall building. When they reach the roof, the man leaps off the edge. The Op tries to grab him, only to fall off the building himself.
The Op wakes up. In his hand, he sees an ice pick. The ice pick is “buried in Dinah Brand’s left breast” (163). She is dead. The Op feels strange. He suspects that he has been drugged. Taking care to remove all traces of his presence, he slips out of the room. When he is free, he calls Dick Foley and says that someone murdered Dinah. He tells Dick to keep an eye out for Whisper, Rolff, and Bill Quint.
In the meantime, he visits Reno and asks Reno to help him with an alibi. Since Reno has suddenly found himself with a lot of enemies, he agrees to help the Op. The Op went to Tanner, Reno says, and spent the night there. This will serve as the alibi. The Op can contact Reno any time, he is told, by passing a message through Peak Murry.
Chapters 15-21 Analysis
Throughout Red Harvest, the Op witnesses numerous attempts to frame innocent people for crimes that they did not commit, reflecting The Poisonous Nature of Corruption. His calm reaction to waking up and finding his hand on the ice pick buried in Dinah Brand’s chest is informed by the frequency with which he has seen men like Noonan manipulate the law in their favor. In Personville, truth means little more than what can be proved. The death of Donald Willsson and the apparent death by suicide of Tim demonstrate how each murder is more an opportunity than a tragedy. Noonan has no interest in who actually committed any crime; he is more interested in how he can use any crime to persecute his apparent enemies. Noonan’s willingness to bend his investigations to suit his own needs demonstrates how the truth is a weapon and the law can be used to beat people into submission.
Red Harvest is presented as a detection story, narrated by the lead detective. Notably, however, the Op shares very little of his detection work with the audience. Throughout the novel, the investigations into what is happening in Personville largely take place in the Op’s mind. He then springs his findings on unsuspecting people, surprising them. MacSwain falls victim to this. When the Op accuses him of murdering Tim, the reader was given no prior indication he was about to do so. The Op has come to this conclusion and has not shared his thoughts with the audience, even though he is the first-person narrator of the novel.
These revelations speak to the Op’s closely guarded personality and his view of The Importance of a Moral Code, which guides his actions even though he does not reveal much of his inner thoughts and values. The reality of the investigation is hidden from the audience, just like the reality of the Op’s identity is hidden from everyone in Personville. The Op only shares what he believes the audience needs to know. Typically, this involves actions rather than thoughts. He is a direct, practical, pragmatic man. He shares his experiences, but not his reflections. As such, the Op shows that he does not trust anyone, not even the audience. In the cold, cynical world in which he operates, even trusting the audience could be construed as a sign of weakness.
The death of Dinah Brand is another significant plot twist. Throughout Red Harvest, she is presented as the Op’s love interest. After flirting and sharing several difficult experiences, they have become close. This closeness is obliterated in a second when the Op wakes up to find himself as the apparent murderer of his love interest. The Op’s reaction speaks to his cold, calculating personality. He does not panic. Instead, he cleans up the crime scene and slips away. He does not mourn Dinah, as this city and this society offer no space for emotion.
After he leaves, however, the Op’s actions hint at a deeper fear within him. Throughout his time in Personville, the Op has noted how the town’s violent tendencies have affected his thinking. He worries that he is catching the murderous fever of the town, rather than fighting against corruption. Having lost his sense of self in a laudanum-induced series of dreams, the Op fears that he has lost himself so completely that he might have murdered an innocent woman. His real fear is not that he will be framed for Dinah’s death, but that he might actually have killed her.
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