Just got a note from Bill Arney, who you’ll remember as the longtime Keeper of the Sacred Shrine, i.e. Hammett’s apartment in 891 Post Street — where a little classic titled The Maltese Falcon was written.
Bill just got a write-up in California Freemason which you can surf over and check out.
I could have gotten some publicity out of it, too, but my name was left on the cutting room floor. “I did my best,” Bill reports, “but they left out your name and called it ‘Drakes’ Celebrated Criminal Cases of America. I should have made them submit it to me for editing before they went to print.”
Any Hammett fan knows the book is Duke’s Celebrated Criminal Cases of America, so they won’t be taken flat-footed. The innocent Freemason standing on the street corner, however. . . .
