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: Zobeck Series One
Hammett: The Grit Conundrum
Or, The Return of Terry “Pure Texts” Zobeck! Apparently there’s no end to the fine-tuning on issues in re: pure texts. Take it away, Terry: Here’s another example of a Hammett story reprinted by Frederic Dannay where the edits predate … Continue reading
Posted in Dash
Tagged "The Judge Laughed Last", "The New Racket", EQMM, Frederic Dannay, Grit, Mysterious Bookshop, Otto Penzler, Terry Zobeck, Zobeck Series One
Hammett: A Wandering Sentences Job
It was another case for Race Zobeck, Confidential Pure Text Dick. The email came winging in lazily over the transom. The client’s moniker was LaViolette. Marc LaViolette. At least that’s what he claimed. . . . He’d gotten bit by the … Continue reading
Hammett: “The Nails in Mr. Cayterer”
Remember the fireworks going off boom! and bang! a couple of days ago? As I watched the explosions I was thinking, yeah, if they only knew that Terry Zobeck was about to finish off — complete, fini — his now … Continue reading
Hammett: “Corkscrew” Part III
When Frederic Dannay, a.k.a. Ellery Queen, collected the Continental Op yarn “Corkscrew” in the 1948 Lawrence Spivak digest Nightmare Town, he resurrected it from the crumbling wood pulp pages of Black Mask much like Dr. Frankenstein rescued the monster from the grave … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit
Tagged "Corkscrew", Black Mask, Frederic Dannay, Lillian Hellman, Pulps, pure texts, Terry Zobeck, The Big Knockover, Zobeck Series One
Hammett: “Corkscrew” Part II
As Terry Zobeck noted in the first part of his pure text survey for “Corkscrew,” the editorial changes were rampant — scanning down this post and then the next post will give you the clew. A hell of a lot … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit
Tagged "Corkscrew", Frederic Dannay, Lillian Hellman, pure texts, Terry Zobeck, The Big Knockover, Zobeck Series One
Hammett: “Mike or Alec or Rufus”
We just had a post from occasional Guest Blogger Brian Leno — how about one from the much more frequently appearing Terry Zobeck? As you might expect, Terry spent some of his spare time during PulpFest prowling the stacks of … Continue reading
Hammett: “Who Killed Bob Teal?”
Step-by-step, story-by-story, Terry Zobeck is chipping away at the editing done to Hammett’s short stories by Frederic Dannay over fifty years ago, and this round returns with another tale of the Continental Op. Most Op tales take place in San … Continue reading
Hammett: “Night Shots”
Terry Zobeck is back with another set of pure text corrections for a Continental Op story you thought you knew inside out — but if you’ve been relying on the reprint version used in books for the last sixty-six years … Continue reading
Posted in Dash
Tagged "Night Shots", Black Mask, Clark Evans, EQMM, Frederic Dannay, Library of Congress, Pulps, pure texts, Terry Zobeck, Zobeck Series One
