Don Herron’s Dashiell Hammett Tour Book Release

Don Herron’s Dashiell Hammett Tour Book Release
April 5
City Lights

(Published in today's San Francisco Bay Guardian, slightly edited for space)

Revered amongst fans as one of the greatest detective novelists of all time, Dashiell Hammett perfected his hard-boiled prose while living in San Francisco’s Tenderloin in the 1920s, writing his soon to be classic works such as “The Maltese Falcon” and his “Continental Op” series. In 1977, Hammett aficionado Don Herron started taking people on a walking tour around the city highlighting sites important in the writer’s life and in his books—three decades later, he still leads the tour, and a new 30th anniversary edition of his Dashiell Hammett Tour Guidebook (Vince Emery Productions) has just been released. Mystery buffs and would be sleuths can join Herron for a special trek on Sunday at noon, then head over to City Lights for a book release party and reading—just watch out for mysterious dames asking for help—that is, unless, you want to end up like Miles Archer.

Walking tour: 12 noon, meet at corner of Fulton and Larkin next to the Main Public Library, $10; Reading: 5 p.m., free, City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Ave., SF. (415) 362-8193, www.citylights.com, www.donherron.com. (Sean McCourt)