# Red Harvest — Character guide

> Key figures in Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett.

- [The Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/the_narrator.md): He is a San Francisco operative summoned to Personville by the industrialist Elihu Willsson after the murder of Willsson's reform-minded son, and he quickly discovers that the old man who hired him is the same man who ar
- [Max Thaler](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/max_thaler.md): Whisper runs liquor, muscle, and favors through Personville's underworld, and his rivalry with the police chief Noonan and the Starkey crowd keeps the city's violence simmering. He is suspected of killing Dinah Brand, wh
- [Dinah Brand](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/dinah_brand.md): Dinah lives in a cluttered gray cottage on Hurricane Street, trading information and affection with gangsters, radicals, and cops, always with an eye on what the transaction is worth to her. She keeps Dan Rolff, a tuberc
- [Elihu Willsson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/elihu_willsson.md): Elihu built Personville's power structure by importing gunmen to break a strike, then lost control of the men he hired, and his reform-minded son Donald was murdered after trying to expose the corruption. When the narrat
- [Reno Starkey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/reno_starkey.md): Reno is a rival to Whisper and a survivor of the Willsson shootout, and he gives the narrator a false alibi for the night of Dinah Brand's murder in exchange for a future claim on the narrator's loyalty. He is blunt abou
- [Dan Rolff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/dan_rolff.md): Rolff is a sick man with a tired, colorless face and a red spot on each cheek, taken in by Dinah when he had nowhere else to go and kept on laudanum and charity. He answers her door, runs her errands, and endures her cas
- [Noonan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/noonan.md): Noonan commands the police force as a personal racket, trading favors with bootleggers and gambling bosses while keeping his greenish eyes twinkling and his manner amiably corrupt. He is a man who can order a building sh
- [Donald Willsson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/donald_willsson.md): Donald Willsson is the respectable face of the Willsson family, a young editor who tried to publish a reform paper in a city his father owned body and soul. He was killed within hours of hiring the Continental Op, a .32 
- [Mickey Linehan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/mickey_linehan.md): Mickey Linehan works the same agency as the Op, a wisecracking professional who grins across his broad red face while complaining that nobody tells him anything. He is the Op's sounding board and occasional legman, usefu
- [Dick Foley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/dick_foley.md): Dick Foley is the agency's surveillance specialist, a low-profile operative who parks his hired car where he's told and watches doors without being noticed. He is the Op's silent backup in a city where every ally is prov
- [Pete the Finn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/pete_the_finn.md): Pete the Finn is one of the four powers Elihu Willsson named as having taken his city, a rum-running boss whose warehouse and men are a standing threat in Personville's underworld. He is a businessman of violence: when N
- [MacSwain](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/macswain.md): MacSwain is a detective connected to the Willsson interests, a figure whose guilt or innocence becomes a bargaining chip in the Op's peace conference. When the Op needs to break Noonan's nerve and force the gangs to come
- [Bill Quint](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/bill_quint.md): Quint holds the local radical line from a green-curtained booth, vetting strangers' union credentials while nursing his own grudge against the men who broke the 1921 strike. He is wary, garrulous, and useful precisely be
- [Jerry Hooper](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/jerry_hooper.md): A nervous, minor gangster who works for Whisper and later meets a bad end.
- [Kid Cooper](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/kid_cooper.md): A young hoodlum and gunman, involved in the city's gang violence.
- [Myrtle Jennison](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/myrtle_jennison.md): A woman connected to the criminal underworld, briefly involved with the narrator.
- [Charles Proctor Dawn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/charles_proctor_dawn.md): A shady lawyer and fixer for the criminal element, later murdered.
- [McGraw](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/mcgraw.md): A police officer or detective, often seen around the station.
- [Ike Bush](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/ike_bush.md): A gangster and associate of Whisper, involved in bootlegging.
- [Peak Murry](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/peak_murry.md): A criminal and gunman, part of the city's violent underworld.
- [Young Albury](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/young_albury.md): A young man from a respectable family, drawn into the city's troubles.
- [Helen Albury](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/helen_albury.md): Young Albury's sister, a respectable woman courted by the narrator.
- [Lew Yard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/lew_yard.md): A powerful gangster and fence, one of the city's crime bosses.
- [Hank O'Marra](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/hank_omarrah.md): A thug and enforcer for the criminal factions in Personville.
- [Al Kennedy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters/al_kennedy.md): A minor criminal or associate of the underworld figures.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/red_harvest_se/characters