Toperoff reimagines the highs and lows of a fast-living, hard-drinking literary couple, and their individual passions, projects, and literary creations. Hammett and Hellman's relationship evolves during major artistic and political epochs--Hollywood's heyday, the New York literary scene, the Spanish Civil War, McCarthyism, and both world wars--and each movement is captured with subjectivity and credible insight. Populated with writers, drinkers, filmmakers,...

At a railway station the fat one, Mischa, accidentally meets the thin one, Porfiri. The thin man travels accompanied by his wife and son. The two old school friends greet each other in an exuberant and informal manner. A conversation follows, and it is about careers of both of them as government officials. The thin one appears to be an office chairman with a low salary, and his wife gives music lessons.

Chester Bryers knows a secret. He has kept it for decades but now, as he nears his final days, he is finally telling his tale. A tale of what really happened to the lost Franklin Expedition, A tale of cold vengeance, long planned and of the adventurer George Greener who discovered a terrible truth. It is a truth that must not be known and by breaking his long silence Bryers' life may be coming to a swifter and more violent end than he imagined; because...

Los Angeles writer Cece Caruso is thrilled that her biography of the legendary Dashiell Hammett is headed for the big screen. Rafe Simic, the actor cast as the lead, may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but the money she'll make tutoring him in the ABCs of The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man should be good enough to feed Cece's addiction to vintage Yves St. Laurent. But when the dead body of one of Rafe's old flames is discovered-and neither...

The old hall where the infamous and cruel judge had once lived, had long gone. The old bridge where his ghost was supposed to have appeared, had been pulled down years ago. The lake was still there, however, and the ancient looking Druid-like stones still breathed an atmosphere of mystery and dark deeds from the past. Rumours still persisted of ghostly sightings of the seventeenth century murderous judge. But that was ridiculous wasnt it? Bondy thought...

Sudden Silence, first published in 1938 and now available in an e-book format, is a 'golden-age' murder mystery centering on the on-stage death of a prominent big band-leader during a performance in San Francisco. Hal Harrison and his orchestra The Harmony Men were one of the hottest new bands in the country. Their two night stand at the Crystal Gardens in San Francisco was going to be the biggest thing to hit that city in years. But when threats...

Dashiell Hammett is universally regarded as one of the finest American writers of "hard boiled" detective fiction and his short stories and novels have been hailed as some of the best mystery stories ever written. Hammett would doubtless have gone down in literary history simply for his creation of the detective Sam Spade ("The Maltese Falcon") as well as Nick and Nora Charles ("The Thin Man" series), but he is also the creator of another of the most...

The bodies of three young African American women are discovered in 1959 Youngstown, Ohio over a period of a few weeks. Our narrator, Tommy Savala, tells the story of his uncle's first major case. Frank Triano is a Mexican American Korean War hero, who uses his notoriety, family connections, and skills to become the youngest detective in the police department's history. Triano, his partner Luke McKimm, a group of eclectic men, and Emily Hughes work...

Examines movie romance in light of our emotional bond to the actors and characters on screen. Gestures of Love considers the viewer's enchantment with charismatic actors in film as the starting point for closely analyzing the performance of love in movies. Written with a thoughtful adoration for the actors who move us, Steven Rybin examines several of cinema's most beloved on-screen movie couples, including Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, Myrna...