PLEASE NOTE: this program has been canceled due to illness.

An evening with Joe Gores
Author of Spade & Archer: The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon
Thursday, April 22 @ 7 p.m.
Olympic Room, Main Library

Joe Gores is one of the world's best-regarded mystery writers and an expert on all things Dashiell Hammett. He is a three-time winner of the Edgar Award (the highest honor for mystery writers), and has also won the Maltese Falcon Award (Japan's highest award in the mystery field), and he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America.

Gores worked as a logger, a carnival roustabout, a teacher at a boys' school in Kenya, and for twelve years, as a detective. Gores' popular novels and stories about detective agency Daniel Kearney Associates are based on his own experiences as a San Francisco private eye.

Gores has written scripts for Kojak, Columbo, Magnum P.I., Mike Hammer, Remington Steele, and other television series. Francis Ford Coppola produced a movie based on Gores' novel Hammett. Gores also wrote the introduction to Lost Stories by Dashiell Hammett, which tells how Hammett influenced literature, movies, television, and Gores' own life.

A community conversation
On the dark side of The Maltese Falcon
Wednesday, April 28 @ 7 p.m.
Olympic Room, Main Library
The plot is straightforward. The Maltese Falcon is a hard-boiled greet detective novel. Look a little closer and you will find a novel brimming with despair, loneliness, and dread. Sam Spade, the main character in The Maltese Falcon, has been described as being 'by nature an existentialist, with a strong conception of the randomness of existence. It is a novel of survival and resistance as well the story of a small final victory over the corrupt moral pragmatism of the modern world.
Panelists include:David Boe, architect & Tacoma City Councilmember; Mark Lindquist, author & Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney; and Dr. Hans Ostrom, Professor of English, University of Puget Sound

Old Time Radio LIVE!
The Maltese Falcon & The Red Wind
Sunday, May 2 @ 1:30 p.m. & 3:30 p.m.
Kings Books
Right from the Golden Age of Radio! Two masterpieces of American hard-boiled crime fiction. James Venturini and the Lakewood Theater present these classic detective stories as they were first broadcast on the airwaves in the early 1940s. Follow the thrilling adventures of Sam Spade as he solves the mystery of the Maltese Falcon. Listen as Raymond Chandler's great gritty detective, Philip Marlowe, sets off to solve a late night murder in a bar. There's a woman with a secret, a missing pearl necklace, an affair that could destroy a career, and another corpse before it all wraps up and the Red Wind dies down.
Free. Reservations required.

Books @ 12:20 p.m.
A book discussion on The Maltese Falcon
Tuesday, May 4 @ 12:10 p.m.
Olympic Room, Main Library
The Maltese Falcon is a classic piece of literature of crime and mystery set in 1920's San Francisco. As detective Sam Spade searches for the missing Maltese Falcon statute, he is drawn into a world of intrigue and murder. Bring your lunch and join us for a fascinating discussion.

Dashiell Hammett in Tacoma:
Influenza, intolerance and the inspiration for the Maltese Falcon
Tuesday, May 4 @ 7 pm
Olympic Room, Main Library
Historian Michael Sullivan presents an illustrated look at the winter the young artist Dashiell Hammett spent in Tacoma, exploring the dark rain slick streets of Tacoma during prohibition and a period of almost unimaginable civic corruption and urban violence.

Was a deadly police shooting and the fraudulent collapse of Tacoma's largest bank an inspiration for the writer? Does the city noir backdrop for some of America's first detective fiction come from Tacoma? Explore the evidence and decide for yourself.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Tuesday, May 11 @ 6:30 p.m.
The Grand Cinema
(Discounted admission with library card)
Sam Spade is a partner in a private-eye firm who finds himself hounded by police when his partner is killed whilst tailing a man. The girl who asked him to follow the man turns out not to be who she says she is, and is really involved in something to do with the 'Maltese Falcon', a gold-encrusted life-sized statue of a falcon, the only one of its kind. A classic.

Free book talk & signing with
Rebecca O'Connor, author of Lift
Wednesday, May 12 @ 7 p.m.
Olympic Room, Main Library
The culmination of a ten-year career in falconry, Lift is a memoir that illustrates the journey and life lessons of a woman navigating a man's ancient sport. Captivated by a chance meeting with a falconer's peregrine as a child, the indelible memory eventually brings the author's life full circle to flying a peregrine of her own. Exploring themes of predator and prey, finding tribe, forgiveness and femininity, the memoir asks universal questions through a unique backdrop. Lift illustrates the beauty and meaning the sport of falconry can add to a falconer's life, echoing the challenges and triumphs of being human.

The Music of Film Noir with The Kareem Kandi Band
Saturday, May 15 @ 1:30 p.m.
Second Floor of the Main Library
Sultry songs sung in small, smoky nightclubs dominate the film noir music landscape. These songs usually aren't just decorative wallpaper; they are the heart and soul of the theme of the film. They often speak volumes more of subplot and character than the rest of the script. Join us as saxophonist Kareem Kandi and his band take us on a musical journey through the dark, neon-washed streets and alleyways of noir.

Dashiell Hammett's Tacoma
A walking tour with Michael Sullivan
Saturday, May 15 @ 3 p.m.
Meet @ Paddy Coyne's Irish Pub
815 Pacific Ave, downtown Tacoma
Reservation required.
Trace the footprints of former Pinkerton detective and mystery writer Dashiell Hammett as we walk through Tacoma in the early 1920's. In Hammett's masterpiece, the Maltese Falcon, Tacoma is the setting for an unforgettable episode called the Flitcraft parable. We will trace the story and examine landmarks and crime scenes that may have inspired the first great detective mystery novel.

Book talk & signing
Seattle Noir: An Anthology
Tuesday, May 18 @ 7 p.m.
Olympic Room, Main Library
Seattle. The city’s evolution to high-finance and high-tech has provided greater opportunity
to those with sinister intent. Seattle Noir is an anthology of short stories by some of the region’s leading authors. Join editor Curt Colbert, Pat Harrington, Katherine Sky Moody and others for a reading and discussion on the challenges of writing noir.

Everybody Loves a Mystery
Tuesday, May 25 @ 7 p.m.
Olympic Room, Main Library
Seattle Times columnist & author Adam Woog, University Book Store's (Bloody) Mary Levesque, Gail Egbers, Instructional Librarian & Associate Professor @ Pacific Lutheran University and Julie Ciccarelli of the Tacoma Public Library share their favorite (undiscovered-except by a fortunate few) mysteries.

Especially for families!

The Lady from Sockholm
The world's first full length sock puppet movie!
Saturday April 24
1 p.m. @ the Main Library (followed by sock puppet craft)
2 p.m. @ Moore Library

Wool War II rages and times are tough for sock puppets. Terrence M. Cotton, a washed-up gumshoe, finds himself knee-high in debt and praying for a big case. Enter Heelda Brum, a finely spun piece of high-end hosiery who hires Cotton to find Darnell, her missing mate. But can a clean sock find justice in a dirty town? As Cotton threads the strands of the case together, he must watch his step or risk meeting the same frayed fate as Darnell. 

Clue: A family gaming adventure
Remember Professor Plum and Miss Scarlett? What about Colonel Mustard? Clue is the classic detective game for the entire family! There's a plot afoot! Murder most foul. Who did it? Where? How? Join us for this very special gaming event. Bring your friends.

Fern Hill Library
Saturday, April 24 @ 2 p.m.

Main Library
Saturday, May 1 @ 1:30 p.m.

Moore Library
Saturday, May 8 @ 2 p.m.

Wheelock Library
Saturday, May 15 @ 11:30 a.m.

Kobetich Library
Saturday, May 22 @ 12:30 p.m.

Dashiell Hammett: Detective/Writer (1999)
Thursday, April 29 @ 7 p.m.
Olympic Room, Main Library
This documentary, an episode of the American Masters series of PBS, features interviews with Hammett's daughter as well as scholars and biographers, and tells the story of the writer's life. Working as a screenwriter in Hollywood exacerbated Hammett's hard-living lifestyle, and people who knew him, including screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr., recall how his writing skills seemed to simply disappear. Newsreel clips illustrate his involvement with left-wing political causes, and critics note how his romance with writer Lillian Hellman seemed to give him something of a second career as editor and literary teacher. This is a fascinating look at a man whose career is both an inspiration and a cautionary tale.

The Long Goodbye (1973)
Thursday, May 6 @ 7 p.m.
Olympic Room, Main Library
Elliott Gould gives one of his best performances as a quirky, mischievous Philip Marlowe in Robert Altman's fascinating and original send-up of Raymond Chandler's classic detective story. Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe (Gould) faces the most bizarre case of his life, when a friend's apparent suicide turns into a double murder involving a sexy blonde, a disturbed gangster and a suitcase full of drug money. But as Marlowe stumbles toward the truth, he soon finds himself lost in a maze of sex and deceit only to discover that in L.A., if love is dangerous friendship is murder.

Murder My Sweet (1944)
Thursday, May 13 @ 7 p.m.
Olympic Room, Main Library
In this adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, Dick Powell's cynical, smart-talking private eye is hired by a dim ex-con to find his girl Velma, and by the prissy stooge of a blackmail victim to babysit him during a handoff. Powell delivers screenwriter John Paxton's snappy lines and droll asides with hard-boiled cynicism, like someone not quite as tough as he talks; but it's Powell's innate vulnerability that makes this reluctant saint of the city so compelling. Edward Dmytryk's shadowy style creates a visual equivalent to the web of intrigue Philip Marlowe navigates, an almost perpetual world of night. One of the first great films noir and an often-overlooked detective-movie classic

Miller's Crossing (1990)
Thursday, May 20 @ 7 p.m.
Olympic Room, Main Library
A cold, clever and brilliant period gangster movie that honors the intricately plotted, morally ambiguous crime fiction of Dashiell Hammett: the screenplay incorporates large chunks of "Red Harvest" and "The Glass Key," with a notion or two from "The Maltese Falcon" thrown in. With its Hammett-like dialogue and Byzantine plot and moral chaos mitigated by one hero's personal code, the film so transcends its self-scrutiny as a retro-crime thriller that it is a deserved classic in its own right

Blade Runner (The Director's Cut)
Thursday, May 27 @ 7 pm
Olympic Room, Main Library
Huh? A science fiction film? Why? Blade Runner takes the vision of film noir to the next level. The film pays evocative homage to the classic noir style and plot (moral dilemmas, a sense of paranoia that often proves to be justified, the woman as lure for the male, and the male as dupe for the woman.). Ridley Scott's film is visually spectacular, intensely action-packed and powerfully prophetic. In a signature role as 21st-century detective Rick Deckard, Harrison Ford brings his masculine-yet-vulnerable presence to this stylish noir thriller. In a future of high-tech possibility soured by urban and social decay, Deckard hunts for fugitive, murderous replicants - and is drawn to a mystery woman whose secrets may undermine his soul.

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