THE DASHIELL HAMMETT TOUR by Don...

THE DASHIELL HAMMETT TOUR by Don Herron (City Lights Books: $9.95, illustrated). Hammett’s terse, tautly plotted short stories and novels revolutionized the genre of detective fiction during the ‘20s and ‘30s. He lived in San Francisco during some of his most productive years, and many of his best stories are inextricably linked to its foggy streets, bars and hotels. Herron, who conducts visitors on a regular “Dashiell Hammett Tour,” provides a guide to what survives of the author’s San Francisco: where Hammett lived and worked, and where his stories took place. Fans of “The Maltese Falcon”--both the novel and the classic movie adaptation--will be pleased to learn that there is now a plaque marking the spot on Burritt Street (off Bush, between Powell and Stockton) where Brigid O’Shaughnessy did in Sam Spade’s partner, Miles Archer.