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Informative & Entertaining (Real or Armchair) Tour of Hammett Sites in San Francisco.
Don Herron has been guiding Hammett fans around San Francisco on his Dashiell Hammett Tour since 1977, and his book allows tourists to do the self-guided thing or to enjoy Herron's in-depth knowledge and anecdotes from afar. This thirtieth anniversary edition, published in hardback as part of Vince Emery Productions' "Ace Performer Collection", includes a preface byDashiell Hammett's daughter Jo, in which she recalls the first time she took the tour, and an introduction by crime novelist Charles Willeford, who advises comfortable walking shoes and some knowledge of Hammett's work before embarking on the tour. This hardback edition may not be the most practical for stuffing in your pocket and setting off to explore the streets of San Francisco, but it is great for reading.

"The Dashiell Hammett Tour" doesn't read like a typical tourbook, which tend not to be very exciting unless you are there. Fans who have never been to San Francisco will find plenty to like. Herron always has something interesting to say. He begins with a 46-page biography of Hammett. There are 30 sites on the tour, plus 9 off-tour sites, that featured either in Hammett's life or in his fiction. (Three of Hammett's novels, including "The Maltese Falcon", and most of his short stories were set in San Francisco.) The entries for each site are a combination of biography, literary criticism, and personal experiences. I've read several Hammett biographies, all of his fiction, and some criticism, and Herron was still able to tell me some things I didn't know.

There are black-and-white photos throughout, new and old, so we can see what the sites looked like when Dashiell Hammett lived in the city, 1921-1929. There are a few maps for walking the tour and for driving it. (I assume that the driving maps are different to accommodate one-way streets.) There is an annotated bibliography at the end. Herron says the tour takes 2-3 hours on foot and ½ hour by car. It's also a lot of fun just to read it. My only criticism is that some readers (particularly older readers) may find that the off-white paper does not provide enough contrast with the black ink for comfortable reading. I wondered if there would be much point in reading "The Dashiell Hammett Tour" if I am not in San Francisco, but Don Herron is always insightful, and I enjoyed the virtual tour a great deal.

A must-have for any fan of Hammett's work
Some writers become popular, and others get cult fandoms. "The Dashiell Hammett Tour: Thirtieth Anniversary Guidebook" is a look into the life of Dashiell Hammett, author of famed mysteries such as the 'The Maltese Falcon'. Examining locations throughout San Francisco and their relation to both Hammett and his creations, with a focus on famed fictional detective Sam Spade, "The Dashiell Hammett Tour" is a must-have for any fan of Hammett's work.
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This is just the single story from a larger collection written by DashiellHammett. ... Read more

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There is menace in the air--some unspoken, unexplained aura of violence and misdeed associated with the strange girl who appeared on the doorstep one day. From the master of the hard-boiled detective story comes a new story of mystery and intrigue. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Short and Sweet
I saw a British special with the main character reading this book. I looked up the title and was surprised to learn the author was Hammett.The seventy six pages went by fast holding my attention to the many turn of events Hammett puts in his story. Life is as he writes, quick and unknowing.Really a good read.

Lesser, Much Lesser Hammett
Dashiell Hammett, along with Raymond Chandler, reinvented the detective genre in the 1930's and 1940's. They moved the genre away from the amateurish and simple parlor detectives that had previously dominated the genre to hard-boiled action characters who knew what was what and didn't mind taking a beating to get the bad guys. And along the way they produced some very memorable literary characters as well. Nick Charles, Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe are well known exemplars of the action detective. However, on the way to creating these literary works of art Hammett did journeyman's work at the detective genre in various pulp detective magazines and in serial form in popular magazines. That is how the short novel under review, Woman In The Dark, began its life.

The late Robert B. Parker, a very fine detective story writer in his own right, noted in the introduction to this work that this plot line, and its twist and turns, represented a very strong example of Hammett's sense of the randomness of human existence. But also the drive for some regularity, some place to hang one's hat, as well. Even down at the edges of society, the places where no one really wants to be, the place of kept women, cons, and ex-cons and of those who have the resources to make such dwellers their playthings.The plot line centers on a hardened, take no bull, been around the block, femme fatale, certainly not your typical damsel in distress, whois fed up with the antics of the rich guy who "rescued" her, for a time, the antics of the rich guy who doesn't like to take no for an answer, especially when he has bought and paid for the merchandise (the femme fatale in this case), and a hard-nosed, hard-luck ex-con (a non-detective for once, if you can believe that) who simply will not go back to prison but who is not adverse to a little romance. And is willing to give, and take, a hard punch, if necessary.

Naturally, as is almost always the case with Hammett, the story line is driven, Hemingway-style, by sparse, functional language. However, for my money, there is just not enough of it to grip the imagination. Other than as an example, arguably a failed example, of Hammett trying to put steamy love interest and hard-boiled guys together on short notice, this novelistic effort could have stayed back in the pulp archives. Or waited to be anthologized in the Library Of America series. For the real Hammett read The Thin Man or The Maltese Falcon, those two efforts, my friends, are why Hammett is in the American literary pantheon.

Forgettable
Even Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth struck out at times.And Hammett?He may have been the father of modern literary noir, delivering punches and jabs to the stomach to make us wince, but even he swung and missed once and a while.To say that WOMAN IN THE DARK does not pack the punch of THE MALTESE FALCON or the CONTINENTAL OP collection of stories would be to give this book more credit than it is due even through the negative comparison.

It is not so much that anything is wrong with this novella.It is just completely forgettable.Nothing sticks to the ribs.Sure the story is good - a dame runs away from her guy, thugs are in pursuit, with the `hero' bringing his own rough justice to day.But it is not the story that makes a book good, but rather the nuance that an author brings to it.

Hammett here is just going through the motions.I found myself discussing Hammett recently with a friend and, when he mentioned that he had never heard of WOMAN IN THE DARK, I could only think that there was a reason for that.In the catalogue of an author's work, this one should have remained lost behind the bookshelf.

Passable plot, action, & dialogue
Strumpet-in-distress Luise runs across burly ex-con Brazil while attempting to escape the evil clutches of rich abusive boyfriend. Rich boyfriend resents losing girl to burly ex-con.Trouble for the new couple ensues.Serious trust issues abound.

Known for epicurean plot cooking, Hammett keeps 'Woman In The Dark' strictly meat-and-potatoes.

He subtitled this 76 page 'long' story "A Dangerous Romance".Truth be told, this is about as romantic as Hammett's stuff ever got---rough embraces, lips pressed hard and tightly together.You get the idea...except there doesn't seem to be enough of that to qualify the tale as a romance.

Dialogue is pretty faithful Dashiellese, although the 'OGJI'--- the Obsolete Gangster Jargon Index --is as low as I've seen.Less than 1.0 per page.

Regardless of my notions of romance and gangster palaver, this is a fast and satisfying read by one of thebest writers of the genre.But then, any Hammett is better than none.

Brief, but all the best of Hammett
This is a brief story, about 75 pages, but packs in all of Hammett's hard-boiled best. The mysterious, beautiful woman appears one night, with a trail of trouble catching up to her. Our hero, if you could call him that, offers his help without knowing what help she needs. Her past catches up to her, his catches up to him, and hers catches up to him.

He's sleaze but she trusts him, a little. His friends are sleaze but he trusts them, a little. The cops are sleaze, and nobody trusts them.

You weren't looking for the Great American Novel, you were looking at Hammett. It's dark, moody, and gritty, as you expected. but the right people get something in the end. It's not the finest, but it's a godd evening's read.

//wiredweird ... Read more

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With his diamond-sharp prose and artfully handled intrigue, Dashiell Hammett virtually invented hard-boiled crime fiction. This omnibus edition includes four linked stories - "The House in Turk Street", "The Girl with the Silver Eyes", "The Big Knockover" and "$106,000 Blood Money" - featuring the Continental Op, Hammett's anonymous tough-guy detective. In "The Dain Curse", the Op takes on a wealthy young woman who appears to be the victim of a deadly family curse. And in "The Glass Key" - Hammett's own favourite among his works - we encounter his most cynical, morally ambiguous hero and a hard-boiled version of a love triangle. In the works collected here, we can observe the process by which Hammett both stripped crime fiction down to its most subtle and searing essentials and elevated it to high literature. ... Read more

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notes from thrillingdetective.com:

DashiellHammett learned the detective racket from James Wright, a short, squat,tough-talking operative, whom Hammett came to idolize (and who would latersupposedly serve as the inspiration for The Continental Op. And detectingwas no easy racket. Years later, Lillian Hellman, Hammett's friend and lover,wrote of "the bad cuts on his legs and the indentations in his head from beingscrappy with criminals."

Hammett left the Pinkertons in 1918, and enlisted in the Army, buttuberculosis contracted while in service prompted his medical discharge lessthan a year later. In the meanwhile there are some of the more peculiar casesHammett was involved in while at the Pinkerton Op, including his confession thathe knew a man who once stole a ferris wheel. However, the piece doesn't mentionthe murder of labour organizer Frank Little in the mining town of Butte,Montana, where Hammett was employed as a strike breaker, during a particularlybrutal mining strike. The rumour is that the Pinkerton men may have played apart in Little's murder, and that it was this incident that hastened Hammett'sdeparture from Pinkerton's, and possibly helped crystalize his left-leaningviews (later, this got him into trouble during the McCarthy hearings.)

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As one of the most popular American writers of detective fiction, Dashiell Hammett has drawn a diverse range of criticism. The author of The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, and other works, Hammett is now receiving additional attention from scholars who seek to reassess his writing. Spanning more than sixty years of critical response, this volume includes reviews of Hammett's novels from the 1920s and 1930s, as well as recent scholarly essays. ... Read more

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Great
Great book!If you like Dashiell Hammett, this is the book to read.Excellent descriptive passages. ... Read more

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Dashiell Hammett's writing career began with the publication of "The Parthian Shot," a tiny short story in The Smart Set in 1922, and virtually ended when he published 3 outstanding stories in Collier's in 1934. During this brief period, he published 60 short stories, 5 novels--including The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man--a few poems, some nonfiction, and several book reviews. Though he published little from 1934 until his death in 1961, his influence continues to this day. This book presents alphabetically arranged entries for Hammett's works, characters, family members, and acquaintances, along with a chronology, a brief general bibliography, and end-of-entry bibliographies for especially detailed entries. ... Read more

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Radio script based on the famous story by Dashiell Hammett introducing Nick and Nora, and of course, Asta! ... Read more

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ALEX RAYMOND IN GLORY
A fine assembly of all the Hammett scripted X-9 tales with one tale scripted by Leslie Charteris.A fine but brief introduction by Hammett maven William F, Nolan.Only thing to complain about is that Raymond's line drawings demand to be displayed in a larger format.But for a moderately priced trade paperback this book's size is serviceable.Nicely done.There is a more recent book produced by a different publisher from other sources, but I do not know if it is in a larger format.Check.It may be worth having if it is over sized. ... Read more

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Playwright Lillian Hellman and author Dashiell Hammett are two of the 20th century's most intriguing literary personalities. The scintillating details of their unconventional relationship are revealed by a NEW YORK TIMES bestselling biographer who not only knew Hellman, but had unprecedented access to her personal papers and closest friends.Amazon.com Review
Despite past sentiment that writers LillianHellman and DashiellHammett should be celebrated--for their writing and societalescapades--Joan Mellen reveals that deceit and insecurity foundedtheir relationship, and the only real loyalty they possessed was forStalin. As unregenerate Stalinists, they publicly endorsed theverdicts in the Moscow purge trials and never recanted theiroft-stated belief that the Soviet Union under Stalin was, "theideal democratic state." While Hammett will be remembered alongwith Raymond Chandler for his detective fiction, Hellman's work,according to Mellen, was her attempt to be like him rather than toshape her own identity. ... Read more

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Seance as bad biography
Joan Mellen is a writer very sure of herself.
Reading Hellman and Hammett, Mellen makes it very clear that she knows whats-what in a "last word" kind of way.
Though that might fly on AM radio, one expects a bit more from a biographer.Not content to quote letters from or to either Lillian Hellman or Dashiell Hammett (or letters they wrote to one another), Mellen feels the need to tell us what they mean.I could say,"It rained today" and, were Mellen my biographer, she would argue at one point that it had rained that day, in another chapter that I was speaking of some sexual desire, later, in yet another chapter, that it was sunny that day and proof of what a liar I was, etc.
Maybe the book would have been better had Mellen not been so sure that she could decipher not only what was said by Hellman or Hammett, but also what Mellen just KNOWS they meant (apparently she's able to peer into the minds of dead people -- "I FEEL dead people" should be Mellen's tagline)?
Equally irritating are Mellen's run on sentences and her tendency to repeat words within the same sentence or, to emulate Mellen's "style":"Still irritating are Mellen's run on sentences; still irritating is her tendency to repeat words in the same sentence."(Mellen appears to operate under the belief: why use "still" once in one sentence when it can be used multiple times?)
She has two larger-than-life artists and instead of being grateful for that and using it as a jumping off point for a first-rate biography, she's stuck in the mental mud of her own mind insisting that she knows what was meant by which joke or statement, what was really meant.A little doubt would have gone a long way in writing this book.
Perhaps she might have even thought to doubt the recollections of some of her sources on past experiences?Two examples (from many):Midge Decter & Norman Podhoretz have done political and personal u-turns (though Mellen doesn't note that -- perhaps she's not as all knowing as she assumes she is?), the sort of which calls to mind the term "revisionists."But these are trusted (and cited) sources for Mellen.
A careful reader will also note that although Hammett is buried on page 346 and the text goes on for ninety-nine more pages, key moments from Hellman's life -- professional and personal -- are left out.Hellman's much derided screenplay for the Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda & Robert Redford film The Chase is reduced to two sentences -- one briefly acknowledging this is Hellman's return to screenplays, the other alluding to her being "dysfunctional" during this period without any explanation given.Were a celebrated writer dysfunctional, I'd say that's a thread to develop in a biography.
The 1980s revival of The Little Foxes is noted only in passing.One sentence tells readers that Hellman gave an unnamed actress a note urging her to say a line "with greater meaning and thus greater force."In two other sentences, Mellen records Hellman telling the director of the play (Austin Pendleton) to call up Jason Robards "and say I've changed my mind.I will mary him."
Does that kind of "biography" and exploration inform the reader that this revival starred Elizabeth Taylor and played for nine months on Broadway?Or that reviews of the play were, at best, mixed?Most importantly, what was the reaction of the seventy-plus Hellman to having a (commercial) hit play on Broadway?Mellen's attention is elsewhere and a distracted biographer doesn't make for riveting reading.
Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett lived complicated, messy lives full of passion, rage, anger, lust and every emotion the human animal is capable of.That fact should have been the basis for an exploration of their lives and times.Instead, Mellen gets bogged down in mind reading, poor writing (true sentences are not three adjectives separated by two commas and the word "and" followed by a period.), and questionable sources.Her intent to "personalize" and "normalize" Hellman & Hammett reduces the scope of their lives and art.Good biography should capture the subjects (positively or negatively), not leave the reader yawning.
No doubt the all knowing Mellen "knew" this was just what the public craved -- Hellman and Hammett reduced to the boring couple next door.Perhaps the book sales corrected Mellen on that point?Reading the book, I'm reminded of Peter Falk's line from In the Spirit (screenplay by Jeannie Berlin & Laurie Jones),"I would never believe a professional prostitute could be so boring."

Fascinating!
A long but extremely rewarding read! Meticulous research brings these two brilliant writers to life. A longtime fan of both of these writers, I had originally planned to buy this book at the time of publication. However,plans did not go accordingly, and when I finally did, I could notfind a copy.It was until a recent book fair at the local mall that I wasable to find a copy.I spent many nights glued to this book fascinated bythis turbulent relationship.This is a biography I will read again andagain. I had never read anything by Joan Mellen-She is a wonderfulwriter! ... Read more

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Very good and up-to-date intro to Dashiell Hammett and his writings
A brief, well-illustrated (27 photos, including the report card from Hammett's single semester of high school), and handsomely-designed biography of Dashiell Hammett, this hardcover is aimed as an introduction to the creator of Sam Spade, The Maltese Falcon, and The Thin Man, but it provides gems to surprise even longtime fans of Hammett. (Such as Hammett's own account, unavailable anywhere else, of who did it in his original, never-completed version of The Thin Man.)

Layman wrote this book after he had done his research for the Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett : 1921-1960 book, so it is based on more recent research than other biographies.

It starts with a chronology of Hammett's life, then a biographical section, a section "Hammett at Work" giving a history of his writing and how he wrote, a "Hammett's Era" section on how events of the author's times affected him, and 33 pages summarizing "Hammett's Works." A section called "Hammett on Hammett" provides four interviews with Hammett, plus a fellow-soldier's account of being stationed with Hammett in Alaska during World War II, and an article by Hammett's brother.

A 59-page section, "Hammett as Studied," provides what is possibly the best overview anywhere of the shifting critical controversies over Hammett's work. In addition to Layman's own well-informed insights, this section reprints Christopher Metress' introduction to The Critical Response to Dashiell Hammett (Critical Responses in Arts and Letters), David Bazelon's influential essay "Dashiell Hammett's Private Eye," and John Cawelti's "Dashiell Hammett."

Finally, the book wraps up with a list of thought-provoking study questions, a glossary of Hammett-related literary terms, and a very useful annotated bibliography of books by and about Hammett.

If you haven't read any other biographies of Hammett, this book and Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers are two very good places to start. ... Read more