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
Tag Archives: Black Mask
Hammett: The Jutting Jaw of Jeopardy!
Once more the clew crew at Jeopardy! dips into the deep trough of the life and career of Dashiell Hammett to summon up hard-boiled ghosts of the past. Seas42 Ep124. February 26, 2026. First round. $400 clew. Category: First Lines … 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
Hammett: After Chandler
Mark Coggins just dropped a bit on The Rap Sheet about how Raymond Chandler got to San Francisco before Hammett hit town. Check it out. Got some dates, some buildings and addresses. The elephant in the burg, though, is the … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, Lit, News
Tagged Black Mask, Eddy Street, Mark Coggins, Raymond Chandler, The Rap Sheet
Hammett: A Title for The Glass Key
Our pulp expert pal Will Murray recently put up another article about Hammett, this time the story behind the title of his novel The Glass Key. Not thunderous material like when Will figured out that Hammett did not write “The … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, News
Tagged "The Diamond Wager", Black Mask, Frederick Nebel, The Glass Key, The Midget Bandit, Warren Harris, Will Murray
Rediscovered: Zobeck Zips Up the Watts Auction
Terry Zobeck kept an eye on the huge auction of books from the library of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts. He even tossed in a bid himself, getting in on the action. With prices paid and the gavel now quiet, … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit, News
Tagged "The Hunter", Black Mask, Book Collecting, Charlie Watts, Dime Detective, Hammond Innes, Raymond Chandler, Rolling Stones, Terry Zobeck
Hammett: Jonathan Latimer Cracks Wise
Got some notes in from Terry Zobeck, who is deep into the forgotten mags of the early 1920s on a Hammett hunt. Big game bibliography at its finest. But he’s not always prowling the primeval pagination, like a regular guy … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Film, Lit
Tagged Black Mask, Erle Stanley Gardner, Jonathan Latimer, Perry Mason, Terry Zobeck
Rediscovered: Lester Dent
Autograph Hound Saturday again and our resident Autograph Hound, in the person of Brian Leno, hauls out the very latest acquisition to his sprawling spread of John Hancocks. This round he presents another Lester Dent item (you may recall his … Continue reading
Hammett: Further “Creeping Siamese”
Today Evan Lewis spotlights another newspaper reprint for a Hammett story — “The Creeping Siamese.” Evan says, “This Op adventure, originally published in the May 1926 Black Mask, was reprinted in the May 31, 1942 El Paso Times.” Plus the paper includes a … Continue reading
Posted in Dash
Tagged "The Creeping Siamese", Black Mask, El Paso Times, Evan Lewis, newspaper action
