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: Prepare Yourself for the Complete Op, In Time for Xmas
In case you haven’t noticed, Vintage Crime announces publication of The Big Book of the Continental Op — just in time for Xmas. I have to check the proof to make sure it is up to my standards, but the … Continue reading
Rediscovered: FLIVVER GAME (!!!)
Operatives of the Mean Streets scour the country, looking for clews. I know it. I trust you know it. Agent Paul Herman just sent in a report after he “went to a collectible ephemera show in Hartford last weekend.” Naturally, … Continue reading
Hammett: High Ticket
I don’t keep close track, but I am well aware prices on first editions of Hammett’s novels have jumped into the big money — kicked off by the legendary 1981 auction of the Adrian Goldstone crime fiction collection here in … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, News
Tagged Adrian Homer Goldstone, Autographs, Black Mask, Book Collecting, Brian Wallace, KoKo Collection, Paul Cain, Poe, Raoul Whitfield, Raymond Chandler, Red Harvest, Terry Zobeck
Rediscovered: Jeopardy! Double-Dips the Black Mask Gang
And good old Jeopardy! has hit the Hammett Clew Pile again! April 5, the category Avian Literature — you don’t have to be an expert in hard-boiled lit to just yell out “The Maltese Falcon!” before any hints get dropped. … Continue reading
Hammett: Here Comes Da Judge!
I was on the horn yesterday with Brian Leno, and thought to say, “Hey, Brian. Want me to tell you something you don’t know?” Brian didn’t hesitate. “Sure.” “You know that building on TV they keep showing where the Ninth … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, News, Tour
Tagged "The Goiden Horseshoe", Black Mask, Brian Leno, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Rediscovered: Gumshoe America; or, Race vs. the Klan
In a couple of days I’m dropping in on a party in Tom Krabacher’s lair, and returning his loaner copy of the academic tome Gumshoe America from 200o by Sean McCann. I was curious about it, since among the major authors surveyed … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, Willeford
Tagged Black Mask, Carroll John Daly, Gumshoe America, KKK, Race Williams, Sean McCann, The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales, Tom Krabacher
Rediscovered: More Mask and Daly — and The Munnster Rides Again
Speaking of Carroll John Daly and Black Mask, as I just was, yes, I got the memo on July 19 that Steeger Properties LLC had bought the rights to The Mask — and also acquired rights to the Daly backlog. Since I guess … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Altus Press, Black Mask, Carroll John Daly, H. Warner Munn, Lovecraft, Steeger Properties, Weird Tales
Rediscovered: Carroll John Who? H. Warner What?
On the tour in recent years (three or four years ago, five, not twenty years ago, not thirty-five) a woman mentioned that her uncle — or maybe he was her great-uncle — like Hammett also had written for the pulp Black Mask. … Continue reading
Rediscovered: The Influence of Race
Race Williams, that is. . . . I got Them That Lives by Their Guns around Thanksgiving last year, and promised I was going to give it a fair shake. Read each and every story. And read them all I did … Continue reading
