She disappears and we learn she belongs to a local religious cult. The Leggetts have a daughter, Gabrielle, who is very much an odd duck in appearance and behavior additionally, she’s a morphine addict. Leggett is a scientist and he’s taken on the assignment of purifying color flaws in diamonds his specialty is the science of color. The Op shows up at the Leggetts’ on behalf of the agency’s client to investigate some missing jewels. You won’t know the why and the how, but your suspicions will be aroused and no twisting of the plot will throw you off the scent. Now, as to that long and winding plot, astute readers will spot the killer early on. So, the best advice when approaching this novel is, don’t let the flaws frustrate you, appreciate it for all its good stuff (that, true, gets used to better effect in his noir classics The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man). Then, too, there is his spot-on understanding of human nature, particularly the dark side Hammett worked as a detective for the Pinkerton agency before and after his stint in the army during WWI. Of course, what balances out these flaws are Hammett’s crisp writing style, his Damon Runyonesque characters, his wisecracking dialogue, and his liberal use of slang, some of it now arcane. And added to these, the typical racism and sexism of the period. (In defense, Hammett first serialized the novel in four parts in Black Mask magazine, where a recasting of the plot would have proven helpful to readers). Regular exposition in the form of formulating theories about the crimes as they build up. The flaws, so you know them going in, are a wildly convoluted plot that even with careful reading you may find hard to follow. Here, what begins as a simple jewelry insurance investigation by the, as usual, unnamed Continental Op, expands in short order into a novel of multiple murders, dope addiction, child abuse, and religious cultism for money, not to mention criminal mastermind manipulation. Hammett’s The Dain Curse, for all of its many flaws, still bears his hallmarks that make reading him nearly ninety years after first publication fun.

Dashiell hammett's the curse