Welcome to a hard-boiled and not without noir blog with news and reviews, occasional outbursts of maniacal Autograph Hound activity, plus archival records from the forty-five year run of The Dashiell Hammett Tour. 
The Dashiell Hammett Tour
1977-2022
Arkham House Ephemera
The Classic Years 1937–1973
Death Lit
Essays and Reviews Selected from Fifty Years of Writing 1974–2024
Willeford
The Book
Monthly Archives: January 2020
Rediscovered: A Line or Two on Fiction Mag Word Rates
And John Locke sent in some thoughts on the large trove of Munsey cheques from which we’ve run any number of samples in recent months. “Weinberg used to auction batches of those checks,” John says, “at Windy City and Pulpcon. … Continue reading
Hammett: Locke’s One-Liner on Rhea/Wilmer
After John Locke hit the Up and Down These Mean Streets scene late last year, I got to steer him to various interesting moments in the extensive backlog of posts. One of them was to the bizarre idea that Gutman’s … Continue reading
Mort: The Late Great Joseph A. West
Today would have been birthday number 98 for Joseph A. West, who sometimes signed his funky eldritch art as Joe West, and often as JAW. Old Uncle Joe didn’t quite make it, passing away on December 11, 2019. As I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Carl Jacobi, Donald Wandrei, Eric Carlson, Joe West, Lovecraft, Richard L. Tierney
Hammett: Another Sneaking into Jeopardy! Moment
I’m keeping a falcon-like eye on the current Jeopardy! battle of the super-champions, to see if Hammett pops up. I bet they all know the difference between Hammett’s Sam Spade and Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. But on January 7 in the … Continue reading
Rediscovered: More Ace and Parker
Coincidentally, the topic of Ace Atkins and Robert B. Parker also popped up in the last few days in exchanges with Kevin Cook, noted pulp and book collector. “At this point in time Parker is still an industry,” Kevin observed, … Continue reading
Hammett: Angel Eyes
Tenderloin Terry Zobeck seeks out the Shadow of Hammett everywhere, and he tells me: I think we’ve discussed Ace Atkins’ continuation of the Spenser novels before. I usually don’t like such things, but he capture’s Parker’s style uncannily well. The new … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Max Z
While I don’t proselytize for it every day, I am a big fan of the Max Brooks novel World War Z — not so much for the movie they named after it. Brian Leno nabbed me a couple of Brooks … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Zombiemeister
Autograph Hound Super-Sunday once again, and do we have anything super to offer? I think so. Yesterday we pinned the label of neat-nik on Kevin Cook, preferring as he does nice clean signatures you can actually read. I think Autograph … Continue reading
Rediscovered: James Lee Burke’s Even Hand
Autograph Hound Saturday once again, and I get the sense that the riot of horrible, illegible John Hancocks we’ve been running recently has begun to bother Kevin Cook, noted book and pulp and autograph collector. The guy likes order, not … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Lighting Up with Lester Dent
You know Brian Leno. The guy’s got a competitive edge. He’s already duked it out mano a mano with Kevin Cook a few times with samples from their autograph collections, notably the Cornell Woolrich face-off back in August. When Kevin … Continue reading
