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: EQMM
Tour: Portland Weighs In
Out of the blue, a double-whammy from Portland. Over on the Davy Crockett Almanack site Evan Lewis does a nice appreciation of Hammett’s The Big Knockover — the Op adventure that ought to make anyone with a pulse a Hammett fan for … Continue reading
Posted in Frisco, Lit, News, Tour
Tagged Bill Crider, EQMM, Evan Lewis, Hammett Tour Book, Terry Zobeck, The Big Knockover
Hammett: The Sam Spade Stories
Frequent Guest Blogger Terry Zobeck returns, to survey the three short stories featuring Sam Spade that Hammett sold to the slicks in 1932. I echo his opinions on these tales — compared to the best of the Op yarns, the … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Digging Out the Dannay
I’ve never been interested in the fiction of author “Ellery Queen” — nom de guerre for the cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee. The only Queen titles I ever recall reading were some of the 1960s novels ghost written … Continue reading
Hammett: “One Hour”
Guest Blogger Terry Zobeck returns with another look into the edits made by Fred Dannay, and this time finds that the blue pencil smote lightly back in 1944! Plus he discovers yet another “pure text” Hammett story available in a modern … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit
Tagged "One Hour", "The Gutting of Couffignal", Black Mask, EQMM, Frederic Dannay, Pulps, pure texts, Terry Zobeck, Tony Goodstone, Zobeck Series One
Hammett: “The New Racket”
Terry Zobeck kicks off another month for us here at Up and Down These Mean Streets with an entry in his series of pure text corrections for Hammett’s short fiction — contrasting the blue pencil work editor Frederic Dannay was making on the … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit
Tagged "The Judge Laughed Last", "The New Racket", Black Mask, EQMM, Frederic Dannay, pure texts, Terry Zobeck, The Adventures of Sam Spade, Zobeck Series One
Hammett: “Angel,” Resurrected
Our now regular Guest Blogger Terry Zobeck returns for another installment — following “This King Business” and “Death and Company” — detailing the various changes made by Frederic Dannay when he was editing Hammett for paperback. I couldn’t help but … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco
Tagged "The Second Story Angel", A Man Named Thin, Black Mask, EQMM, Frederic Dannay, Terry Zobeck, Zobeck Series One
Hammett: The Dannay Edits
Terry Zobeck returns for another Guest Blog post, an overview of Things to Come. Inspired by his research into restoring the pure text on “This King Business,” Terry has decided to dig into his collection and show us what Hammett wrote before … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit
Tagged "This King Business", EQMM, Frederic Dannay, pure texts, Terry Zobeck, Zobeck Series One
