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
Category Archives: Dash
Hammett: Death of The Midget Bandit — Gutshot in a Prison Break!
And how else would The Midget Bandit have gone out, except as an authentic gangsta? The mug shots — the final mug shots — this time come from his stint in Walla Walla. And here once more is Midget authority … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, News
Tagged Edwin Ware, Fresno California, prison breaks, Seattle, The Midget Bandit, Walla Walla, Warren Harris
Hammett: The Midget Bandit vs. The Smiling Bandit
Edwin Ware — The Midget Bandit — was by no means the only yegg in his day to pose for a mug shot. Above you’ll see Roy Gardner — from a Sacramento, California arrest. Who was Gardner, you ask? Here’s … Continue reading
Hammett: Crime Wave of The Midget Bandit!
Over this week Guest Blogger Warren Harris has sketched in the life and criminal career of The Midget Bandit — today he returns to the California crime spree and some of the lurid headlines it generated. And here’s Warren: As The … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, News
Tagged Edwin Ware, Fresno California, Roy Gardner, The Midget Bandit, Warren Harris
Hammett: Before Edwin Ware Became The Midget Bandit
Yesterday you got the detailed scoop on The Midget Bandit, his California crime spree, and his encounter with Hammett. Today Warren Harris returns to give you more of the fascinating backstory of one of the many, many criminals Hammett encountered … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, News
Tagged Edwin Ware, Famous Players-Laskey, Folsom Prison, Fresno California, Halifax Explosion, San Quentin, Warren Harris
Hammett: Edwin “Midget” Ware
Yesterday I told you we were going to give you an ID on The Midget Bandit — and here it is. As direct as a fist in the face. If you ever had the slightest curiosity about The Midget Bandit, … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, News
Tagged Edwin Ware, Fresno California, Michael Fitzgerald, Modern Library Falcon, Pinkerton's, Stockton California, The Midget Bandit, Warren Harris, Wilmer Cook
Hammett: Midget Bandit Week!
If you’re any kind of serious fan of the writings of Dashiell Hammett, you know that Hammett modeled the gunsel Wilmer Cook in The Maltese Falcon, published in first edition hardcovers by Knopf in 1930, on a crook known as The Midget Bandit. … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Film, Lit, News
Tagged Bogie, Elisha Cook Jr., John Huston, Modern Library Falcon, PEAPS, Stockton California, The Midget Bandit, Warren Harris, Wilmer Cook
Rediscovered: Weird Tales, Paperbacked and eBooked
Just the other day Terry Zobeck did up a list of pretty much everything Hammett ever wrote or edited, including a single anthology — of horror fiction. Creeps by Night. Take a gander at the cover for a British paperback reprint of … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit, News
Tagged August Derleth, Creeps by Night, Cthulhu Mythos, Doug Draa, eBooks, Farnsworth Wright, Frank Belknap Long, Haefele's Heretics, Lovecraft, Pulps, Robert Bloch, Terry Zobeck, Weird Tales
