At The Paris Review, Anne Diebel considers Dashiell Hammett’s “strange career.” “In a 1929 interview with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dashiell Hammett described his first attempts at ‘breadwinning.’ After dropping out of Baltimore Polytechnic Institute at 14, he worked as a messenger boy for the Baltimore and Ohio […]
Dashiell Hammett’s “The Gutting of Couffignal” is available for your reading pleasure at the Library of America’s blog. The story originally appeared in the Dec., 1925 issue of the influential pulp fiction magazine, Black Mask. Along with the story there’s a discussion of the publication pressures of writing […]
Bound (1996) starts with an excellent practical effect title shot, then the camera moves to a woman, tied up in another woman’s closet, as we hear voices talking about money, theft, time and a plan. You can tell it’s not her closet because she is very butch and […]
At CrimeReads, Claire Whitfield considers misleading characters and murderers hiding in plain sight. “we expect bad people to come with devil horns and a handy label. It’s still a surprise when we find out murderers can be charming and admired in the community. Cruel manipulators might always open […]
At Crime Reads, Olivia Rutiliagno presents her “100 Best, Worst and Strangest Sherlock Holmes Portrayals of All Time, Ranked.” “We’re ranking Sherlock Holmes performances. One hundred of them. Not Sherlock Holmes adaptations, but the representations within them of Sherlock Holmes himself. Now, you might think that you know […]
The Library of America blog has an essay and an excerpt from Joan Didion’s “L.A. Noir.” “Around Division 47, Los Angeles Municipal Court, the downtown courtroom where, for eleven weeks during the spring and summer of 1989, a preliminary hearing was held to determine if the charges brought […]
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The Cultural Gutter 