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
Author Archives: Don
Rediscovered: The Block Begins to Creak Under the Weight of All Those Comics. . .
Now here’s some news. Brian Leno let me know today that he has decided to sell a chunk off his horde of stuff. For years he’s been hawking wares on eBay, but I think of most of those listings as … Continue reading
Rediscovered: More Leno Library
Brian Leno has come into a group of display cabinets and now is working to fill them up. I imagine he’ll juggle some of the stuff around again, eventually. Maybe have one devoted to his Jack the Ripper collection. Or … Continue reading
Two-Gun Bob: Mak Morn Meets Kull
I bought and read the First Passage collection with the earlier drafts of well-known Howard stories. It seemed to me that REH was at many times just trying to get the story down on the page, and then all the poetical turns … Continue reading
Posse McMillan: Alias D. B. Bug, Esq.
Kent Harrington popped in a note about the recent nod to our pal (and publisher) Dennis McMillan: “Loved the shirt post and the shirt. It reminded me how we used to use aliases for fun. I was always Lt. Raj … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Metcalfe and Gawsworth
I used to get images from Brian Leno of his recent autograph purchases. I still do, but I used to, too. Yep, it’s Autograph Hound Saturday once again — this time featuring John Hancocks and holographic scribblings from writer John … Continue reading
Posted in Lit
Tagged Arthur Machen, Autographs, Brian Leno, John Gawsworth, John Metcalfe, M. P. Shiel
Posse McMillan: A Shirt Off His Back
From time to time I’m prowling through old email archives and when I see something related to, or from, the late Dennis McMillan I’m tossing it into a new DMac file. At minimum, it’ll be fun to round up various … Continue reading
Rediscovered: The Agony and the Ecstasy
Digging through some unearthed files, I came across a contemporary review of my book Willeford — lost, I’d forgotten about it. The review should have been lost in some other piles of paper, but there it was. I had done … Continue reading
Rediscovered: The Library of Brian — Inspiration, or Warning!?!
Brain Leno has a story about when he was a kid in Bismarck, beginning to buy paperbacks. He’d sit in front of the small bookcase he shelved them on and savor his library. His father made the bookstand “out of … Continue reading
Rediscovered: The Latest Life
Our pal Morgan “The Morgman” Holmes just dropped his new review of the latest biography of Robert E. Howard on the Arkhaven Comics site. Keeping his hand in, even as he populates his own Substack site with the extensive archives … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Get Yer Shiel Here
Aha. I’ve been waiting for this book — although technically I don’t really need it. You do. Beating the likes of Random House and Little Brown and their ilk to the punch, Hippocampus Press just gathered under one set of … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Arthur Machen, Book Collecting, Harold Billings, Hippocampus Press, John D. Squires, Lovecraft, M. P. Shiel, Scott Connors
