RED HARVEST and S. S. Van Dine's rules According to S. S. Van Dine, detective fiction writing seems to be ruled by twenty principles that would guarantee excellent results for both writers and readers of the genre. After reading Dashiel Hammett's Red Harvest, I could not desist from exploring Van Dine's rules more profoundly and analysing their validity when applied to Red Harvest. I have taken the liberty of selecting some of the rules and …showed first 75 words of 945 total…

…showed last 75 words of 945 total…the detective novel in times when it seemed the rules were clear and heterodoxy was out of the question. I believe there is more to be discovered in this novel and that all these murders are not only points to be scored. I believe that at some level they stand for issues that might be relevant to life and death and, as a consequence, the psychological, social, or aesthetic delineation of characters must be essential.