Even an ardent fan of Dashiell Hammett would agree that this work of his is known more for the prose than the actual plot and I am one. But as they say - even a dead elephant costs a fortune (inflation adjusted), so does this one. The prose is as hardboiled as any of the Hammett's which makes this book no less than a fortune.
The hero- Ned Beaumont is a tough character who leaves the reader often confused with the more subtle layers of his character. Prima-facie, he is a hero, but the settings around him are hardly clean enough to let him remain one.
He is friend and right hand man to a political bigwig of the town - Paul Madvig, who, like most of his clan, will go any length to fulfill political ambitions. That may include wooing a Senator's daughter or even, possibly, committing a murder. Apart from that, Madvig owns some nightclubs, and has also been party to many corrupt ways and shady deals which is so common and indeed a necessity in his chosen career.
And it is Ned Beaumont who helps him to achieve most of that. All this, and his almost unadulterated loyalty towards his master, makes reader hard to believe in him as a hero.
But hero he is because he is as hardboiled as Sam Spade or The Continental Op could have been; because he is loyal to his friend, and not entirely to his deeds. And throughout the book he also takes a moralistic stand which is contradictory but simultaneous to his other aforementioned stand.
The backdrop of the plot is a murder for which Madvig is accused. Beaumont sets out to investigate to clear his friend, but then gets involved at personal level, when plots become thick with layers.
But I got so much enamoured by Hammett's mesmerizing prose that plot became secondary. It has helped that Hammett himself was a private eye before he took the more lucrative but less interesting job of writing PI books. The readers are not complaining, though.
This may not be first Hammett book one might want to read, but it is definitely highly recommended.
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