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
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Tag Archives: Will Murray
Hammett: Killer Critic
Will Murray, pulp historian and latter-day Kenneth Robeson, just sent me a link to “a biographical page about a writer who committed suicide a few months after his last book received a scathing review by Dashiell Hammett.” The bio on … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit, News
Tagged Doug Anderson, J. Aubrey Tyson, literary suicides, Richard Dalby, Will Murray
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: Dashammet
Will Murray digs away in aging archives, turning up cool tidbits. Here’s Will: I came across these excerpts from Mort Weisinger’s Pony Express gossip column in Writer’s Review back in the 1930s. “DASHIELL HAMMETT is busy in Hollywood working for … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Film, Frisco
Tagged Erle Stanley Gardner, Mort Weisinger, Will Murray, William Powell
Rediscovered: 50 Years of Gangland’s Doom
The crew at The Shadowed Circle magazine just released a commemorative 50th anniversary edition of a landmark in Shadow studies. You’ll remember that in addition to the magazine not long ago they brought out the excellent omnibus The Shadowed Circle … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Frank Eisgruber Jr, H. Warner Munn, James Patterson, Robert Weinberg, The Shadow, The Shadowed Circle Compendium, Will Murray
Rediscovered: The Burnt Shadow
Speaking of The Shadow, the excellent new book The Shadowed Circle Compendium reminded me of a trip a few years ago, when I stopped in on Dennis McMillan during a period he lived in Gallup, New Mexico. Dennis had access … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Know The Shadow. . .
Check out that great Chinatown alley. Can’t you just see Lon Chaney as a vicious legless Lord of the Underworld creeping over the stone bricks, enrapt in savage dreams of subjugating the city? But Chaney kept his lair in San … Continue reading
Posted in Film, Lit, News
Tagged Alec Baldwin, Ian McKellan, James Reasoner, John C. Moran, Lon Chaney, Orson Welles, The Shadow, The Shadowed Circle Compendium, Walter B. Gibson, Will Murray
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
Hammett: I Just Knew “The Diamond Wager” Sucked
Today Will Murray put out his latest research project over on the Black Gate blog, and every serious Hammett fan will want to take a gander — then do a double-take — and then sit down with a drink to … Continue reading
