Hasta la vista, Blarney! Book

Several hard-boiled stories are presented in chronological order with a preface before each about the life and work of each author that was as charming, well-written and informative as the stories themselves.

Did you know that prior to becoming a hard-boiled writer that Dashiell Hammett worked for Pinkerton's and was investigating the case on silent film star Fatty Arbuckle where he was accused of the rape and murder of a young starlet? Although Arbuckle was later acquitted, his career was ruined - but Hammett's soared.

I also found it interesting that The 3:10 to Yuma started out as a short pulp story, which might leave you to wonder, How did they get a whole film out of THAT?

There are some brilliant stories with amazing twists, one especially left me stunned that I hadn't figured out the ending and having to flip backwards through the pages and re-read seeing where I was put off-track.

Even though there are stories that simply don't match up to the genius of the others, such as the first one, for example (which frankly really wasn't that good - so don't be put off by it!), I still felt it more than worthy of the 5-star rating considering the wealth of exceptional writing contained within the pages.