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: May 2022
Hammett: The Noir Croissant
Brian Wallace updates the news regarding Clive Owen playing Sam Spade, after Sam has moved to France, it’s circa 1963, and a plot is brewing. First, The Ronin blurbs the project and speculates who might pick it up — they … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Primeval Arkham House Ephemera
John D. Haefele and I, marching deeper into the thick of the Arkham ephemera jungle, plug away on a book intended to cover each and every Item from the Classic Years when August Derleth and Donald Wandrei were in the … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Arkham House, August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Donald Wandrei, John D. Haefele, Julie Matthews
Hammett: A Newsprint Hodgepodge
Today Evan Lewis put up a clump of fun newspaper clippings which mention Hammett, even naming the mysterious yarn “The Tale of Two Women,” which you may never have heard of. (Back in 2011 Terry Zobeck solved that story title … Continue reading
Hammett: “Siamese” Getting Around
Evan Lewis recently did a post on the Hammett yarn “The Creeping Siamese,” and now Brian Leno tells me that Library of America have picked it up for their Story of the Week — using the same illo Evan scoured … Continue reading
Posted in Dash
Tagged "The Creeping Siamese", Brian Leno, Evan Lewis, Library of America, newspaper action
Rediscovered: W. R. Burnett on Defund the Police
A few weeks ago I finally got around to reading the heist-gone-wrong classic The Asphalt Jungle from 1949 by W. R. Burnett. With his first novel in 1929, Little Caesar, Burnett made his name. A cornerstone of crime fiction, the … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Val Lewton
Autograph Hound Saturday once more, and Brian Leno is back to give us a glance at one of his most recent acquisitions in the Department of Serious John Hancocks. Take it, Brian: I haven’t seen too many Val Lewton signatures … Continue reading
Posted in Film, Lit
Tagged Autographs, Boris Karloff, Brian Leno, James T. Farrell, Val Lewton, Weird Tales
Tour: Inquiries Welcome
For the Dashiell Hammett Tour I have drifted over largely into doing Tours by Appointment. Kind of inevitable. Easier. Better money. After 45 years, bound to happen. And I still meet people who ask me how many times a day … Continue reading
Mort: Fred Ward
After the fact, word drifted in that Fred Ward died on Sunday May 9 at the age of 79. Got to note it here since — as pictured above — Fred was the first to essay the role of Charles … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Another “Lost” Arkham
As usual, I was sitting around minding my own business, collecting Arkham House ephemera, when I realized I might have spotted another “lost” Arkham House book. For decades fans have been noting books that once may have made it into … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Arkham House, August Derleth, Charles Beaumont, John D. Haefele, Mildred Clingerman
