HAMMETT WALKS EVERY SUNDAY THIS MONTH
After tons of news items about books and signings all year, let’s keep the May news kind of simple. You want to take the tour for the first time or after a hiatus of fifteen or twenty years, just show up on a Sunday this month with a tenspot at the ready, like it says on the Tour Page. Rain or shine. After more than thirty years on the mean streets, Don isn’t daunted by some stinking rain.
BACK TO THE MECHANICS LIBRARY
A couple of month ago Don sat in on a reading at the Mechanics Library in the first block of Post Street, covering a section of his neo-Black Mask yarn from the new anthology San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics. On Tuesday May 2, 6 p.m. he returns to do a talk and signing for the new hardback edition of The Dashiell Hammett Tour book. Mechanics Library members get in free, the general public gets to shell out $12.
The round of signings for the tour book has been fast and furious — check out the shots this time, all taken during a joint appearance with Ace Atkins in the Borders on Union Square. Lots more photos to come, including a ton taken during the first gathering of the Hammett Flash Mob. Plus a couple more nice little blurbs and reviews for the tour book have appeared on the web, from Duane Swierzynski, one of the current noir guys holed up in Philly, and Thomas Burchfield, who has been hanging around the San Francisco crime/noir and swing music scene for a few years now.
AND THE “PORKY” GROUT MEMORIAL AWARD GOES TO
our good pal Mike Humbert, who was plowed down by a car while minding his own business and crossing the street up in Chico a few weeks ago. You may know of Mike because he hosts the Hammett website linked off the Tour Page — and he’s also the guy who did the snazzy maps for the new hardback of the Hammett tour book. We’re glad to report that Mike is out of the hospital and recovering, so he can plonk his gumshoes back on the mean streets sooner than later. Mike also gets credit for Best Hard-boiled Presence of Mind Moment — when he woke up in the hospital his first words were, “Someone really wanted me off this case. . . .”
