It’s an early A (Black) Gat in the Hand, as I got my Pulp on week before last, at Windy City, in Chicago.

I managed to resist the impulse to grab the microphone in the Dealers Room and proclaim, “Finally….The Bob…has come back…to Windy City.” A little classic Rock for you there. And in not doing so, I wasn’t evicted and had a great time.

Doug Ellis puts on the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention annually at the Lombard Westin, in the suburb an hour west of Chicago. I last attended in 2019. Of course, COVID hit in 2020, along with some other life changes. I made it to my first Howard Days in 2022, and headed over to Pittsburgh the last two years for Pulp Fest. Windy City just didn’t quite happen. But I made sure it did in 2025.

There’s an auction, some panels, an art show, and a massive Dealer Room. I’ll share my purchases here in a minute. But hands down, the best part of Windy City for me, is hanging and chatting with people. I see lots of online friends and some folks I’ve met before. I even make new friends. Sort of.

Walking around the Dealer Room and getting into conversations on pulp or paperback favorites is a blast. I find somebody to chat Nero Wolfe, or Jo Gar, or Solar Pons, or Solomon Kane, or Bail Bond Dodd, or…you get the idea. I found myself showing my Civil War shelfie to someone, as they talked about Shelby Foote.

There are always folks sitting around the lobby. I’ve met new friends just sitting down and working into the conversation. Saturday night, Ryan Harvey, Chris Hocking, James Enge, and I, spent over two hours just riffing through movies and writers. Ryan’s knowledge of multiple movie genres is staggering. And what those three knew about movie soundtracks left me soaking it in.

Add in eating a couple meals with friends, and the social aspect of Windy City is hands down my favorite part. As you’ll see, I find things to buy – and I restrain myself every year – but it’s talking about mutual interests at Windy City that is the highlight for me. Glad I made it back. See you there in 2026?  Between the ever-present LA Dodgers cab, and a shirt with ‘Byrne’s Pub’ writ large on the back, I’m easy to spot.

What Did I Buy?

Max Latin!

You may (or may not) know, I wrote the introduction to Steeger Books’ reissue of the collected Max Latin short stories. Norbert Davis is on my Hardboiled Mt. Rushmore, and the shady private eye Latin, is my favorite work of his. The fact that my intro replaced the last professional piece written by my favorite writer, John D. MacDonald, is awesome. You can read my intro, here at Black Gate.

For $70, I got the May 1942 issue of Dime Detective, containing “Give the Devil His Due.” This was the fifth Latin story, and I am now the proud owner of an original Latin story. There’s also a Marquis of Broadway by John Lawrence in this issue.

Gotta Have Some Howard!

I resisted the impulse to bring home a haul of Robert E. Howard-related books. It’s easy to find more cool stuff to add to my library – even if I already have the stories included. But Robert E. Howard Foundation folks. Bill Cavalier, Paul Herman, and John Bullard were there. And breakfast with John and Paul was a conversational potpourri I won’t soon forget!

Held every June in REH’s hometown of Cross Plain, TX, Howard Days is a terrific gathering of Howard fans from all over the world. I wish I’d been into Howard back when I lived in Austin. Highly recommended weekend.

I met Will Oliver, a really cool guy (when you’re as cool as I am, you are drawn to other cool people. Yeah…) when I was down there. Will just put out an extensively referenced, door-stopper of a biography of Howard. I grabbed a copy directly from Will at the table, which he kindly signed. I am looking forward to digging into this and probably talking about it during this summer’s run of A (Black) Gat in the Hand.

Cool & Lam

I’ve written about my favorite Erle Stanley Gardner series many times here at Black Gate. But it’s not Perry Mason. I like the do-it-all lawyer, but the mismatched duo of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam easily hold my ESG top spot. You can find all of my Cool and Lam posts here, including the ‘lost’ pilot, with an intro by Gardner himself.

I don’t have quite all the books, and many are falling apart. As in, I’ve had to toss a couple. Those old Dell paperbacks get extremely brittle. I was happy to pick up two replacement copies at just $5 each. If you haven’t read Cool and Lam, you’re missing out on some high quality PI fiction. At least check out my first post on them, which is based on essay I wrote for Black Mask magazine (yeah, I appeared in THE Black Mask!).

The Frederick Nebel Library Grows

So, Norbert Davis’s is the third face on my Hardboiled Mt. Rushmore. Frederick Nebel is number two. Nebel was the guy that Joe ‘Cap’ Shaw tapped to slide into Dashiell Hammett’s place when the latter left Black Mask (and the Pulps). My library has a lot of Nebel from Steeger Books, including Cardigan, MacBride and Kennedy, and the under-appreciated Gales & McGill.

I already had a couple of Nebel’s air adventures from Illinois’ Black Dog Books. But when I saw Tom Roberts with a table at Windy City, I couldn’t resist. I picked up Sky Blazers, plus the three books along the bottom. Also, three more non-Nebels. I have a couple other digital books from Black Dog. Tom is putting out terrific Pulp by a lot of authors who deserve to still be read. And he has some great intros (I’m still trying to con him… I mean, convince him, to let me write one). I’m a fan of Black Dog, and you should check them out.

 

Sky Blazers/Wolves of the Wind/Flying Freebooters

I’m not into the Air Pulp genre – in fact, I can’t really even discuss it knowledgeably (like THAT ever stops me, as you well know). But I really enjoy Nebel’s Gales & McGill series, just about all of which appeared in Air Stories, I believe.

I now own all six Nebel books from Black Dog. The top three are all air stories, a few with recurring characters. Nebel and Horace McCoy are the only Air Pulps writers I read, and I’m looking forward to more Nebel.

Flame Island and Empire of the Devil are short story collections of exotic tales from the Adventure Pulps. This is another genre I haven’t read much, but with over 600 pages of Nebel, I’ll be working my way through these. Two of the stories were made into films.

Forbidden River – Nebel started out writing Canadian adventures – you know, Mounties and trappers. Forbidden River contains five such stories. Steeger has also put out two collections of these. Nebel was writing Northern adventures when he joined Black Mask.

Roger Torrey

I have the excellent short story collection, Bodyguard, in digital. I couldn’t pass up a second Torrey book: this time in print. Torrey wrote in a straight hardboiled style, and he didn’t change at all as the genre moved more towards the Cornell Woolrich or John D. MacDonald style of mysteries. He was also a major alcoholic and became unreliable and of quite variable quality. He died young, still writing for the ‘lesser’ pulps. But when he was good, he was very good, and I’m a Torrey fan.

Norvell Page

Page is best known as the primary writer of the hero Pulp, The Spider (under the house name, Grant Stockbridge). Like most Pulpsters, he wrote many genres, including weird menace, and G-men stories. I have his limited Western output as a Black Dog e-book.

I really struggle with the Spicy Pulps. Briefly a popular genre, they’re just so goofy I can’t take them seriously enough to enjoy them. I wrote a post on a Robert E. Howard spicy story – and it was more of a saucy-tinged adventure. Whereas, I can’t even finish a Dan Turner (Hollywood Detective) story in one -sitting.

Robert Leslie Bellem’s Turner is the most popular of the spicy detectives, even getting his own magazine. But to me, it’s like a parody of Race Williams. And Williams can be hard enough to absorb, without making it a spicy parody.

Page wrote a series of spicy stories featuring Bill Carter (who is not his Weird Menace star, Ken Carter), an investigative reporter in Miami. This volume collects (all?) twenty of them. Page is still kinda over-the-top for me, but these are FAR more readable than the Dan Turner stories. I’ll work my way through this book.

Norbert Davis’ Westerns

I already had this in digital, but I couldn’t pass up the print edition. Davis didn’t write many Westerns, but he wrote some damn good ones. I already did this Black Gate post on one of my favorites, “A Gunsmoke Case for Major Cain.” I plan on covering a couple more for the summer Pulp series along the way. I really like his Westerns.

MISC

I also picked up a Dell Mapback of Rex Stout’s Tecumseh Fox mystery, Double for Death. I like Mapbacks, and try to pick up one or two when they aren’t too expensive. I got a few Stouts last year at Pulp Fest.

Also, you should definitely attend Windy City next year if you want to play ‘If Bob Were Here.’ To hear something I said repeated back conversationally with “If Bob were here, I bet he would say…” I’m used to being ragged on. To combine it with being ignored is really impressive!

The Art Room

I snapped a few pics of the really cool stuff in the Art Show, but I wish I had been dialed in for it. I would have gotten a lot. The Mark Wheatley, and Gary Gianni stuff, had most of my attention. But there was some neat REH and Edger Rice Burroughs stuff too.

I like this El Borak print by Jim and Ruth Keegan, from the Wandering Star/Del Rey books. There was a cool Solomon Kane pic by Gianni. There was a statue in front of it which it mirrors. I wish I’d taken a close up of it. I will be more focused when I visit the Art Room next time.

Gary Gianni was selling five prints for $30 – signed, at a table. I snagged them! There were four Solomon Kanes – color, and black and white. Also, one larger sized Conan from “A Witch Shall Be Born.”

He chatted with folks and is a super nice guy. I’m friends with Bill Cavalier (well, I don’t think he refutes that statement, anyways) and have met Mark Wheatley and Mark Schulz at Pulp Fest. Robert E. Howard artists have been really nice folks.

 

THE HOWARD ANDREW JONES PANEL

A lot of Howard’s friends and fans were at Windy City. There was a panel to remember and celebrate Howard, curated by his biggest fan and supporter, Arin Komins. John O’Neill, James Enge, Seth Lindberg, and John Hocking shared thoughts and memories. Audience members were also offered the opportunity to speak, and Howard’s fellow Black Gaters Ryan Harvey, Greg Mele, and myself, spoke fondly of our missed friend.

Kudos to Doug Ellis for setting aside time for Howard to be front and center. Mentions of him were peppered throughout the weekend among the Black Gate and associated crowd. We will be fondly remembering him for a long time to come.

One audience member came up and talked about helping when Howard was putting together the Harold Lamb collections. And he revealed there were some Lamb stories (four, maybe?) that they didn’t have the rights to, and I think Howard had edited those as well. Would be need to see those added to Howard’s Lamb work.

Jason Waltz – you can believe I took Arin and company to task as they were setting up the books, and there was no Hither Came Conan!

 

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand 

2025 (1)

Shelfie – Dashiell Hammett

2024 Series (11)

Will Murray on Dashiell Hammett’s Elusive Glass Key
Ya Gotta Ask – Reprise
Rex Stout’s “The Mother of Invention”
Dime Detective, August, 1941
John D. MacDonald’s “Ring Around the Readhead”
Harboiled Manila – Raoul Whitfield’s Jo Gar
7 Upcoming A (Black) Gat in the Hand Attractions
Paul Cain’s Fast One (my intro)
Dashiell Hammett – The Girl with the Silver Eyes (my intro)
Richard Demming’s Manville Moon
More Thrilling Adventures from REH

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2023 Series (15)

Back Down those Mean Streets in 2023
Will Murray on Hammett Didn’t Write “The Diamond Wager”
Dashiell Hammett – ZigZags of Treachery (my intro)
Ten Pulp Things I Think I Think
Evan Lewis on Cleve Adams
T,T, Flynn’s Mike & Trixie (The ‘Lost Intro’)
John Bullard on REH’s Rough and Ready Clowns of the West – Part I (Breckenridge Elkins)
John Bullard on REH’s Rough and Ready Clowns of the West – Part II
William Patrick Murray on Supernatural Westerns, and Crossing Genres
Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘Getting Away With Murder (And ‘A Black (Gat)’ turns 100!)
James Reasoner on Robert E. Howard’s Trail Towns of the old West
Frank Schildiner on Solomon Kane
Paul Bishop on The Fists of Robert E. Howard
John Lawrence’s Cass Blue
Dave Hardy on REH’s El Borak

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2022 Series (16)
Asimov – Sci Fi Meets the Police Procedural
The Adventures of Christopher London
Weird Menace from Robert E. Howard
Spicy Adventures from Robert E. Howard
Thrilling Adventures from Robert E. Howard
Norbert Davis’ “The Gin Monkey”
Tracer Bullet
Shovel’s Painful Predicament
Back Porch Pulp #1
Wally Conger on ‘The Hollywood Troubleshooter Saga’
Arsenic and Old Lace
David Dodge
Glen Cook’s Garrett, PI
John Leslie’s Key West Private Eye
Back Porch Pulp #2
Norbert Davis’ Max Latin

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2021 Series (7 )

The Forgotten Black Masker – Norbert Davis
Appaloosa
A (Black) Gat in the Hand is Back!
Black Mask – March, 1932
Three Gun Terry Mack & Carroll John Daly
Bounty Hunters & Bail Bondsmen
Norbert Davis in Black Mask – Volume 1

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2020 Series (21)
Hardboiled May on TCM
Some Hardboiled streaming options
Johnny O’Clock (Dick Powell)
Hardboiled June on TCM
Bullets or Ballots (Humphrey Bogart)
Phililp Marlowe – Private Eye (Powers Boothe)
Cool and Lam
All Through the Night (Bogart)
Dick Powell as Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
Hardboiled July on TCM
YTJD – The Emily Braddock Matter (John Lund)
Richard Diamond – The Betty Moran Case (Dick Powell)
Bold Venture (Bogart & Bacall)
Hardboiled August on TCM
Norbert Davis – ‘Have one on the House’
with Steven H Silver: C.M. Kornbluth’s Pulp
Norbert Davis – ‘Don’t You Cry for Me’
Talking About Philip Marlowe
Steven H Silver Asks you to Name This Movie
Cajun Hardboiled – Dave Robicheaux
More Cool & Lam from Hard Case Crime

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2019 Series (15)
Back Deck Pulp Returns
A (Black) Gat in the Hand Returns
Will Murray on Doc Savage
Hugh B. Cave’s Peter Kane
Paul Bishop on Lance Spearman
A Man Called Spade
Hard Boiled Holmes
Duane Spurlock on T.T. Flynn
Andrew Salmon on Montreal Noir
Frank Schildiner on The Bad Guys of Pulp
Steve Scott on John D. MacDonald’s ‘Park Falkner’
William Patrick Murray on The Spider
John D. MacDonald & Mickey Spillane
Norbert Davis goes West(ern)
Bill Crider on The Brass Cupcake

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2018 Series (32)
George Harmon Coxe
Raoul Whitfield
Some Hard Boiled Anthologies
Frederick Nebel’s Donahue
Thomas Walsh
Black Mask – January, 1935
Norbert Davis’ Ben Shaley
D.L. Champion’s Rex Sackler
Dime Detective – August, 1939
Back Deck Pulp #1
W.T. Ballard’s Bill Lennox
Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Phantom Crook (Ed Jenkins)
Day Keene
Black Mask – October, 1933
Back Deck Pulp #2
Black Mask – Spring, 2017
Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘The Shrieking Skeleton’
Frank Schildiner’s ‘Max Allen Collins & The Hard Boiled Hero’
A (Black) Gat in the Hand: William Campbell Gault
A (Black) Gat in the Hand: More Cool & Lam From Hard Case Crime
MORE Cool & Lam!!!!
Thomas Parker’s ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’
Joe Bonadonna’s ‘Hardboiled Film Noir’ (Part One)
Joe Bonadonna’s ‘Hardboiled Film Noir’ (Part Two)
William Patrick Maynard’s ‘The Yellow Peril’
Andrew P Salmon’s ‘Frederick C. Davis’
Rory Gallagher’s ‘Continental Op’
Back Deck Pulp #3
Back Deck Pulp #4
Back Deck Pulp #5
Joe ‘Cap’ Shaw on Writing
Back Deck Pulp #6
The Black Mask Dinner

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Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.