[3] Time included Red Harvest in its 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005, noting that, in the Continental Op, Hammett "created the prototype for every sleuth who would ever be called 'hard-boiled.

'"[4] The Nobel Prize-winning author André Gide called the book "a remarkable achievement, the last word in atrocity, cynicism, and horror.

In the meantime, the Op is spending time with Dinah Brand, a possible love interest of the late Donald Willsson and a moll for Max "Whisper" Thaler, a local gangster.

The Op blackmails Elihu Willsson into calling the governor, who sends in the National Guard, declares martial law, and suspends the entire police force.

In the early 1970s, Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci considered filming an adaptation of Red Harvest and wrote a first draft infused with political themes typical of his work.

[citation needed] Donald E. Westlake wrote an unproduced screenplay adapting Red Harvest, which changed the story considerably to refocus the ending on the murder of Donald Willsson; Westlake felt that having the solution of the mystery come so early in the novel made the Op's continued involvement hard to justify.

[10] The Coen brothers' film Blood Simple (1984) takes its title from a line in Red Harvest in which the Op tells Brand the escalating violence has affected his mental state: "This damned burg's getting me.

[11] The dialogue and plot of director Rian Johnson's debut feature, Brick, was inspired by the novels of Dashiell Hammett, particularly Red Harvest.

[14] In The Aurora Teagarden Mysteries Season 1 episode 10, "A Game of Cat and Mouse", Red Harvest is quoted as is The Maltese Falcon.