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: Crimereads
Hammett: The Return of
Terry Zobeck keeps his eye peeled like a Pinkerton’s man and let me know the Hammett Tour book gets some nice blurbage from Max Allan Collins on CrimeReads. Thank you, thank you — to both. Looks as if Hard Case … Continue reading
Posted in Dash
Tagged Crimereads, Hammett Tour Book, Hard Case Crime, Marvin Lachtman, Max Allan Collins, Sam Spade pastiches, Terry Zobeck
Hammett: Nathan Ward v. M. Spade
Got a note from our pal Nathan Ward — author of the Hammett bio The Lost Detective — that he’s getting sucked into the current Sam Spade experience of watching Monsieur Spade on AMC. “I have only seen one episode,” … Continue reading
Frisco Beat: Nathan Ward Goes to Sea
You’ll remember Nathan Ward and his Hammett bio The Lost Detective. That one really gets going when Hammett rolls into San Francisco and sits down at his typewriter. Over on CrimeReads Nathan has just kicked a story off from San … Continue reading
Hammett: #MeToo 2
Awhile back I linked to a set of contemporary newsprint articles on Hammett and the assault on Elise De Viane. At that moment Cosby had been thrown in the hoosegow — and now he’s out. The weird meanderings of history-in-the-making. … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Wittgenstein Dug Norbie
Kent Harrington pops in a link to a CrimeReads article about how the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wolfed down a steady diet of hardboiled American pulp crime fiction. Not something your average guy on the street would be expecting to hear, … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Crimereads, E. Hoffmann Price, Evan Lewis, Kent Harrington, literary suicides, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Norbert Davis
Rediscovered: San Francisco — and California — Mysteries
Just got tipped off to a recent interview with librarian Randal Brandt on CrimeReads, if you’d care to drift over and check it out. Randal took up the search for mysteries set in San Francisco after I donated my collection … Continue reading
Rediscovered: CrimeReads Discovers Willeford
Nathan Ward just alerted me to the news that today CrimeReads put up an article on the late, great Charles Willeford. A little something for Willeford’s centennial year. Not a bad introduction for people who don’t know Willeford (which is to … Continue reading
Rediscovered: A Tough Guy Amidst Books
Woke up today to find Nathan Ward had dropped a link on me to his latest tidbit on CrimeReads, of which he says: “Has nothing to do with Hammett or the (newly discovered by the NY Times) Tenderloin. Thought you … Continue reading
Posted in News
Tagged Attica, Crimereads, Izzy Zimmerman, Nathan Ward, New York Times, Sing Sing, Tenderloin
Hammett: And Stein
Nathan Ward just informed me of a tidbit he did for Crimereads, about the meeting of Hammett and Gertrude Stein. If you have his bio of Hammett, The Lost Detective, you’ve already got the gist of the incident. Especially these … Continue reading
