Thanks for the clarification, Etienne. For the record, I
don't know the name of Hammett's cat, but I do know that
Chandler's cat was named Taki. And it wasn't a black cat at
all, though he appears to be in photographs, but rather a
tortoiseshell longhair. There appear to have been a number of
hardboiled writers who owned cats. My new book, JOKER POKER,
which just went live at iUniverse.com, and will soon be
available through all the usual outlets, doesn't feature a
cat, but I do own four of them, one of which is a dead ringer
for Taki. Cats, however, are a wonderful hardboiled kind of
creature, being perfectly psychopathic. They represent the
world which the hardboiled sleuth navigates, and observation
of their habits (along with those of the more conventional
human psychopaths) has enhanced my own work. R
Richard Helms JOKER POKER, a Pat Gallegher Mystery coming in
May from Writer's Showcase, an imprint of iUniverse.com Visit
the <A HREF="http://hphosting.iuniverse.com/hpdata/Racerick75/">Murders
In The Vieux Carre</A> website!
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