The Paperback Show Podcast

Show Notes Although Hammett is a major influence in mystery fiction, his novels and stores (with the sole exception of The Maltese Falcon) are often left unread. It's a shame because they all hold up well even in 2022. I urge you to get one of Hammett's paperback novels and just sit down and read. Believe me, they will entertain you. Red Harvest (his first novel) might be a good place to start if you've never read him.  This podcast was several months in the making. My thanks to Richard Brewer for sharing his thoughts on The Glass Key with me. He is a delight to converse with.  I took most of the biographical information on Hammett from Nolan's excellent Shadow Man biography, but also from a lesser know biography by Sally Cline called Dashiell Hammet: Man of Mystery. A word of warning: many biographies suffer from the heavy hand of Lillian Hellmen who spun her own mythology of Dashiell Hammett, most of it made to make her (and him) look good.  Another outstanding work, ...

Episode 3 of the Paperback Show features a discussion of the novels of Raymond Chandler with bookseller and audio-book producer, Richard Brewer. We focus, in particular, on Chandler's classic - The Big Sleep. It was a lengthy conversation so we released a condensed version of the show for our regular podcast. We are making the uncut version available here as part of our Show Notes (see below). There's also a cover gallery which you can access in a separate post. Ep 3 Show Notes BBC interview with Raymond Chandler. You can download a written version of the interview (Ian Fleming is the interviewer) right here. ( see page 30) Tom Adams  is our favorite cover artist for the Ballantine edition of Raymond Chandler. There is an excellent book out on Adams, who also illustrated the British paperback editions of Agatha Christie. The book is titled: Tom Adams Uncovered.   Ballantine Raymond Chandler paperbacks (covers by Tom Adams) The Big Sleep (novel) by Raymond Chandler His fir...