Now that I’ve re-read all of the stories in Ron Goulart’s anthology The Hardboiled Dicks, and posted reviews of each of them on this blog, I’ve decided to rank them, not in terms of how much I liked them, but in terms of their relative hardboiledness, if such were really a word. Your opinion may vary:

LESTER DENT “Angelfish.”
NORBERT DAVIS “Don’t Give Your Right Name.”
FREDERICK NEBEL “Winter Kill.”
RAOUL WHITFIELD “China Man.”
JOHN K. BUTLER “The Saint in Silver.”
FRANK GRUBER “Death on Eagle’s Crag.”
RICHARD SALE “A Nose for News.”
ERLE STANLEY GARDNER “The Bird in the Hand.”

   It’s been a year since I posted this link on my blog. Take a 30% discount on the prices you see here, which is how they’re priced on Amazon:

         https://mysteryfile.com/Books/MysteryPB.html

   Points of interest online, perhaps:
   

● A recent blog (only three entries, so far, unless I’m missing others) is called Crime Film Hub Daily, with links to news and reviews of, guess what, crime films online.

         https://crimefilmhub.com/
   

● From a follower of this blog named Greg Karber: “I’m a huge fan of fairplay mysteries, and I’ve channeled that affection into an interactive murder-mystery logic-puzzle game called Murdle.”

         https://gtkmysteries.com/murdle

   â€œI’m trying to share it with people I think might be interested. The mysteries get more complicated and difficult throughout the week, like the crossword, so if today’s too easy, just wait for tomorrow’s!”
   

● From Bob Byrne, a regular contributor to the Black Gate website:

   â€œBack when the world blew up early in 2020, I began writing about a thousand words a day, about Archie Goodwin’s life, locked in the brownstone with Nero Wolfe.

   “I wrote about 42,000 words over 45 days, posting them nightly at the Wolfe Pack FB page.

   “I’m posting them weekly now at Black Gate, giving them a more permanent home. Here is this week’s entry – I’m up to Day 38:

         Black Gate/Nero Wolfe

   “Each installment includes all my prior Wolfe musings and stories, including a solo Archie adventure that won a Wolfe Pack contest last year.”

“To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

               =

“In one of the Bard’s best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten.”

I spent the weekend in Bordentown, New Jersey. Big whoop, you say, but that otherwise totally innocuous town was also the site of this year’s Pulp Adventurecon. I had a great time — it was the first such pulp-paperback type convention I’ve been able to get to in over three years. More details — with photos — soon!

   I remarked in a review for somebody or other not too long ago that I thought I was out of step with the field, and I feel that way more every day. With very few exceptions, the crime fiction that makes the best-seller lists and even the books that sell the best at mystery bookstores are of types I don’t care for at all, or at least nearly as much as I do others.

   The bestsellers are more often than not slick, superficial, and padded in my estimation, and the most popular ones seem to be the literary equivalent of slasher movies. And if you took lawyers, thrillers, serial killers, and cozies off the mystery bookstore shelves you wouldn’t have enough books left for a good yard sale, and two-thirds of those would be historicals — and while I like the category, they’re getting to be a glut on the market.

   Trash proliferates, while many of my favorite series sell just enough to keep being published, and often make it to paperback late or never; e. g., Bill Crider’s Dan Rhodes, John Riggs’ Garth Ryland, Jonathan Ross’s George Rogers, John Malcom’s Tim Simpson, Jill McGown’s Lloyd & Hill, Jon Cleary’s Scobie Malone, Michael Bowen’s Richard Michaelson, Eric Wright’s Charlie Salter, Les Roberts’ Milan Jacovich, John Brady’s Matt Minogue, Michael Collins’ Dan Fortune, Stuart Kaminsky’s Porfiry Rostnikov, David M. Pierce’s V Daniel, James Sallis’ Lew Griffin, and a bunch of et cetera‘s.

   It just seems like anything between big/bloody and cute/ frothy doesn’t have too much of a chance any more. Oh well, hell, at least I’m better off than [some of you]  — nobody even writes classic detective stories any more.

Today, April 12th —

   I had a carpenter come in to do some repair work around the house. I asked him to remove the carpet from the steps leading from the hallway to the kitchen and living room area. He gave me a blank stare.

   
   Never buy flowers from a monk. Only you can prevent florist friars.

It’s taken a while to get these DVDs sorted out and organized, but I’ve finally put a list together, and here it is. They’re also listed for sale on Amazon, but take a 20% discount if you order from me directly.