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: News
Rediscovered: Eph Book Now 7% Off
Today I notice that Eph Book — a.k.a. Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years 1937-1973 — is up on Amazon for 7% off. Yesterday it was 6% off. If we were talking pork bellies, empires would shake.
Hammett: Killer Critic
Will Murray, pulp historian and latter-day Kenneth Robeson, just sent me a link to “a biographical page about a writer who committed suicide a few months after his last book received a scathing review by Dashiell Hammett.” The bio on … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit, News
Tagged Doug Anderson, J. Aubrey Tyson, literary suicides, Richard Dalby, Will Murray
Hammett: Another Downpour in the Atmospheric River of Black Birds
And tomorrow another entry in the Sam Spade Sweepstakes rains down. Check out the review by James Reasoner. James likes this kind of thing, even mentions he enjoyed the prequel novel Spade & Archer done by Joe Gores a few … Continue reading
Hammett: It’s Raining Black Birds
As Sam Spade comes roaring into Public Domain with the New Year, Steeger Books offers an edition of The Maltese Falcon using the original text from Black Mask — intro by pulp historian Will Murray. Serious book collector types will … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, News
Tagged Black Mask, Book Collecting, Mark Coggins, Poltroon Press, Sam Spade pastiches, Steeger Books, Will Murray
Rediscovered: Eph Book Now 9% Off
And as the year 2025 rolls to a close, I notice that currently Eph Book — a.k.a. Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years — is priced at 9% off retail on Amazon. A few days ago it was 11% off, … Continue reading
Rediscovered: It’s Gotta Be Xmas
Now I notice that Amazon is offering Eph Book — which is to say, Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years — at 11% off retail. Will they do the limbo and go lower? I have no idea.
Rediscovered: Eph Book 5% Off
Just noticed that Amazon has knocked 5% off the retail on Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years, if you go for deals. Must be some Xmas shopping thing. Or an algorithm gone wild.
Rediscovered: Writing Away in Arkham House
Autograph Hound Saturday again, but this time we ain’t got no John Hancock — we’ve got a book stamp. You know we could begin knocking out a series — a long series — of Book Stamp Saturdays or Mondays or … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Buford Pusser
Autograph Hound Saturday once again, and we spotlight a famous lawman. When I was in college at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, I heard Buford Pusser would be signing clubs at a Ford dealership across town. Growing up … Continue reading
Posted in Film, News
Tagged Autographs, Breaker Morant, Brian Leno, Buford Pusser, Buford Pusser Museum, Joe Don Baker, MTSU, Sir Richard Francis Burton, Walking Tall
