
Sitting in his rooms in 891 Post Street in San Francisco one of the star writers for the wood-pulp Black Mask cooked up a yarn that would make him the name to conjure with for closing in on a century — and counting.
A little love story and a murder mystery, noir before noir was cool.
Alfred A. Knopf publishers released the first edition of that novel on Valentine’s Day 1930.
The Maltese Falcon.
By Dashiell Hammett.
Ninety-one years ago today.