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: Frisco
Frisco Beat: Worley Recalled
Yet another mini-memoir of crime writer William Worley has wandered into the traffic on These Mean Streets, this one from Linda Shaw — a student from one of his classes in Lowell High: I had not thought about Mr. William … Continue reading
Posted in Frisco, Lit
Tagged Linda Shaw, Lowell High School, San Francisco Mysteries, William Worley
Frisco Beat: Back to Chinatown
For those of you in the game of collecting San Francisco Mysteries, Connie di Marco is one of the current writers jumping into the fray — on April 26 her new one Serpent’s Doom, fourth entry in her series of the … Continue reading
Sinister Cinema: The Shadow of Bill Arney
Dropped in on a memorial party for the late great Bill Arney last night in 891 Post, tales were told of his exploits, we found the raw footage of his epic toy tank battle filmed in Death Valley or someplace, … Continue reading
Rediscovered: 19 Minutes with Fafhrd and the Mouser, and Fritz
Over on The Pulp.Net I just gave Bill Lampkin the okay to put up an article I did back in 2014 for his zine The Pulpster — a good one, if I say so myself (hell, even definitive), on the … Continue reading
Posted in Frisco, Lit, News, REH
Tagged Bill Lampkin, Fafhrd, Fritz Leiber, Harry Otto Fischer, Leo Grin, Sword-and-Sorcery, The Cimmerian, The Gray Mouser, The Pulp.Net, The Pulpster
Hammett: Top Ten
ABEbooks just released a list of their top money-makers for 2021 and Hammett comes in at no. 10 — not with a first edition, but with a much later reprint of The Maltese Falcon inscribed to Bebe Daniels. Bebe played … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Film, Frisco, Lit, News
Tagged ABEbooks, Bebe Daniels, Book Collecting, Dwight Frye, The Midget Bandit, Wilmer Cook
Frisco Beat: Wolf and Greek Go All Primeval
Our pal Morgan “The Morgman” Holmes has a dictum — either the product of his own profound deliberations or picked up over shots of whiskey in a seedy bar held together with vines and rattan somewhere on the outskirts of … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, Lit, News, REH
Tagged Before Adam, Clark Ashton Smith, George Sterling, Jack London, literary suicides, Lovecraft, Morgan Holmes, Popular Magazine, Vince Emery
Frisco Beat: Mark Coggins on 891 Post and Bill Arney
Just got a note from crime writer Mark Coggins rounding up some stuff about the late Bill Arney on Twitter. One of the links offers Bill reading something by Mark on KQED. I bet there’s a lot of Bill’s voice … Continue reading
Frisco Beat: Up in Spade’s Room
Thomas Burchfield just put up an article on the late great Bill Arney — especially useful because it first appeared in 2009 and contains lots of info on Bill’s movements in San Francisco. I’d almost forgotten the breakup with a … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, News, Tour
Tagged 891 Post, Bill Arney, Hammett Cult in San Francisco, House of Fans, Maltese Falcon Society, Thomas Burchfield
Mort: Bill Arney
It’s a sad day in Sam Spade’s San Francisco. Got a note from Mike Humbert last night to inform me that Bill Arney died yesterday morning, September 28 2021. As of now, I don’t know what got him. I’m kicking … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, News, Tour
Tagged 891 Post, Bill Arney, Hammett Cult in San Francisco, Mike Humbert
