Stiletto be employed along with the dagger as a fighting weapon; a 1536 dueling treatise authored by Achille Marozzo, "Opera Nova", contains sections on dagger and stiletto fighting. By the time of the Renaissance, the term stiletto had come to describe a range of slender thrusting knives closely resembling the French poignard, many with conventional dagger-profile blades and sharpened edges, but always retaining the slim profile and needle-like point. To lighten the weapon, many stilettos were equipped with blades carrying fullers over a portion of their length. The stiletto remained a popular weapon of criminals or political assassins from the 16th
The Black Stiletto the vigilante's image and mystique was exploited by the media in comics, films, and action figures. "Who was the Black Stiletto?" became a catch-question like "Who shot JFK?" "The Black Stiletto" was released in the US on 5 September 2011. As part of the promotional process for the novel, a free downloadable teaser short story, "The Black Stiletto's Autograph" was made available on the official website. Reviewing "The Black Stiletto", academic Dr Wesley Britton noted that "verisimilitude is one strength of what could have been just a comic-book romp without pictures" and that because of this, the novel was "a