Activities
William Nadel of the New York chapter conducted a Dashiell Hammett/Thin Man walking tour of Manhattan. Founded by mystery writer Jiro Kimura, the Japanese chapter produced a newsletter called The Maltese Falcon Flyer ten times a year, and in 1983 began to present the annual Falcon Award. Co-founder Herron began to conduct the Dashiell Hammett Tour in San Francisco, the longest running literary tour in the United States.
The San Francisco chapter meetings heard presentations by mystery novelists Julie Smith, Charles Willeford, Stephen Greenleaf, and Joe Gores. Other speakers included Hammett biographers Diane Johnson and William F. Nolan, bounty hunter Tiny Boyles, people who knew Hammett including Jerome Weidman, and coroners, crime reporters, FBI agents, and bail bondsmen. The San Francisco chapter also staged special events, such as a "shootout" conducted at the 1981 Marin Designers Showcase in Mill Valley, California, which resulted in the police being called.
The New York chapter became inactive in the late 1980s. The fifth anniversary meeting of the San Francisco chapter was held May 27, 1986, on the 92nd anniversary of Hammett's birth, and it was the chapter's last. The author's daughter Jo Hammett was the final speaker.
By 1990, only the Japanese chapter of The Maltese Falcon Society was still active. In 2006, the Japanese chapter produced a large-format softcover book in Japanese, The Complete Maltese Falcon Flyer 1982-2006, which includes the first 250 issues of the newsletter with new introductions by Don Herron and other writers. In 2009, with about 90 members, the Japanese chapter continues to hold meetings in Tokyo and Osaka, to produce The Maltese Falcon Flyer, and to present the Falcon Award.
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