“It was a diamond all right, shining in the grass half a dozen feet from the blue brick wall. It was small, not more than a quarter of a carat in weight, and unmounted. I put it in my pocket and began searching the lawn as closely as I could without going at it on all fours. I had covered a couple of square yards of sod when the Leggetts’ front door opened. “
Oh dear. Having really enjoyed The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man a lot, I decided to read some lesser known novels by Hammett, in the hope that I might, like the Continental Op in the quote above, find some diamonds in the rough. Unfortunately all I found was ‘rough’, no diamonds!
The Dain Curse is divided into three, loosely linked stories, which equate to the instalments in which the novel was first published in The Black Mask magazine. The first story opens with the Continental Op investigating a diamond robbery from Doctor Edgar Leggett. Dr Leggatt was using the diamonds to test a process of colourisation. The Op is commissioned by an insurance company to see whether the reported theft is legitimate and if possible to recover the diamonds. Dr Leggett’s wife maiden name was Dain and in the course of the investigation it emerges that their daughter Gabrielle believes there is a curse on the whole Dain family which follows them through the generations. This belief appears justified when several murders complicate what at first appears a straightforward investigation. I have to confess that even though I have only just finished reading the novel I can’t recall the precise detail of who murders who, and why, but I suspect that level of detail is not that important – this is an adventure story rather than a mystery. We know the Op is going to find out who committed the murders, all we have to do is enjoy the ride.
Diamonds recovered, the Op thinks his time with the unfortunate Gabrielle is over, but he is soon recalled to investigate a mysterious religious cult to which she has succumbed. The cult’s headquarters double as a clinic, a place of worship, and a retreat for the more vulnerable of the membership. The Op infiltrates the clinic/hostel/church none too subtly, and after the inevitable drugging, murdering and shoot-outs, manages to rescue Gabrielle. Her fiancé takes her away to marry her as quickly as possible before anything else can happen to her, but of course the curse cannot be escaped as easily as that….
The novel ends with at least ten pages of exposition, ten pages of the Op explaining what really happened. This becomes absurdly complex and convoluted and I can’t imagine many readers by this stage (or even earlier) really caring who did what to whom. The solution, including the extremely unlikely evil mastermind behind it all, is of course nonsense. If the novel itself was worth reading then the silly ending would be excusable, but sadly the characters are weak and unconvincing and the prose is flat. If you were considering reading anything by Hammett, a) despite all of the above, don’t let this put you off, and b) don’t choose this. Better still, read anything by Raymond Chandler!
The Reading Bug 