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: Lit
Death Lit: More on Parker
Terry Zobeck and I have been working behind the scenes to polish up some of his “pure texts” posts, in particular his first shot at it for “This King Business.” Looking it over again, Terry realized he’d left any changes … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit, News
Tagged "Corkscrew", "The Gutting of Couffignal", Ace Atkins, Jesse Stone, Pulps, pure texts, Raymond Chandler, Robert B. Parker, Spenser, Terry Zobeck, Zobeck Series One
Hammett: “The New Racket”
Terry Zobeck kicks off another month for us here at Up and Down These Mean Streets with an entry in his series of pure text corrections for Hammett’s short fiction — contrasting the blue pencil work editor Frederic Dannay was making on the … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit
Tagged "The Judge Laughed Last", "The New Racket", Black Mask, EQMM, Frederic Dannay, pure texts, Terry Zobeck, The Adventures of Sam Spade, Zobeck Series One
Hammett: Ode to Op
Damon Sasser just popped me a link to “This Ain’t Sherlock Holmes,” a nice tribute to Hammett’s Op tales on the Vintage Crime website — written by Scott Montgomery, who may be the same Scott Montgomery I met during the secret noir … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit, News
Tagged Ace Atkins, Black Mask, Carroll John Daly, Hammett Tour Book, Peter Maravelis, Pulps, Scott Montgomery
Hammett: “Dan Odams”
Terry Zobeck returns with another Guest Blog detailing the edits Frederic Dannay made as he gathered Hammett’s short stories into a series of paperbacks over half a century ago — editorial cuts and changes which have been perpetuated in editions of … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit
Tagged "The Man Who Killed Dan Odams", Black Mask, Cap Shaw, Frederic Dannay, pure texts, Terry Zobeck, Zobeck Series One
Two-Gun Bob: “Conan vs. Conantics”
I’ve heard that various fans already are drifting into Cross Plains, Texas for the latest Robert E. Howard Days celebration — this one a notable landmark, seventy-five years since the young author killed himself on June 11. As a memorial … Continue reading
Hammett: More Dumas, père
Recent posts on the idea of influence of the senior Alexandre Dumas on Hammett and the poisoning motif from The Count of Monte Cristo surfacing in the story “Fly Paper” reminded my good pal Jiro Kimura of something he noticed a … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit, News
Tagged "Fly Paper", Alexandre Dumas, Babe McCloor, Jiro Kimura, Joe Gores, pure texts, Spade & Archer, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Maltese Falcon Society
Rediscovered: Haefele Roaming Around the Arkham Hills
My Arkham House ephemera collecting pal John D. Haefele returns to print with “Far from Time: Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, and Arkham House” in the premiere issue of Weird Fiction Review from Centipede Press. John last got a blurb on this … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News, REH
Tagged Arkham House, August Derleth, Centipede Press, Clark Ashton Smith, John D. Haefele, Lovecraft, Pulps, Scott Connors, Seabury Quinn, The Cimmerian, Weird Fiction Review, Weird Tales
Two-Gun Bob: Poetry on Parade
As Donald Sidney-Fryer and I were trooping down Enchanted Rock outside Fredericksburg, Texas, a stop on our way to Robert E. Howard Days in Cross Plains in June 2009, I did not suspect that I was going to be drafted … Continue reading
Posted in Film, Lit, News, REH
Tagged Ben Friberg, Donald Sidney-Fryer, Fabrice Tortey, Glenn Lord, Howard Days, Indy Cavalier, Joe Lansdale, Larry D. Thomas, Professor Frank Coffman
