Product Description

A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grafter named Joel Cairo, a fat man name Gutman, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett’s coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted three generations of readers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23439 in Books
• Published on: 1989-07-17
• Released on: 1989-07-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Amazon.com Review
Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammett's archetypally tough San Francisco detective, is more noir than L.A. Confidential and more vulnerable than Raymond Chandler's Marlowe. In The Maltese Falcon, the best known of Hammett's Sam Spade novels (including The Dain Curse and The Glass Key), Spade is tough enough to bluff the toughest thugs and hold off the police, risking his reputation when a beautiful woman begs for his help, while knowing that betrayal may deal him a new hand in the next moment.

Spade's partner is murdered on a stakeout; the cops blame him for the killing; a beautiful redhead with a heartbreaking story appears and disappears; grotesque villains demand a payoff he can't provide; and everyone wants a fabulously valuable gold statuette of a falcon, created as tribute for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. Who has it? And what will it take to get it back? Spade's solution is as complicated as the motives of the seekers assembled in his hotel room, but the truth can be a cold comfort indeed.

Spade is bigger (and blonder) in the book than in the movie, and his Mephistophelean countenance is by turns seductive and volcanic. Sam knows how to fight, whom to call, how to rifle drawers and secrets without leaving a trace, and just the right way to call a woman "Angel" and convince her that she is. He is the quintessence of intelligent cool, with a wise guy's perfect pitch. If you only know the movie, read the book. If you're riveted by Chinatown or wonder where Robert B. Parker's Spenser gets his comebacks, read the master. --Barbara Schlieper

From AudioFile
It's 1928. San Francisco PIs Sam Spade and Miles Archer are engaged by a young lady to shadow a man she alleges has kidnapped her sister. Not true--and Archer is soon the late Archer, leaving Sam to seek both his killer and the titular statue. This dramatization is heavily influenced by the movie version of Hammett's novel. The actor who reads Sam Spade closely follows Humphrey Bogart's style. The Sidney Greenstreet role is delivered as a carbon copy of Greenstreet's speech pattern. The roles played by Peter Lorre and Mary Astor escape this mimicry. All in all, this is an entertaining performance that makes one want to see the movie again. R.E.K. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
"Dashiell Hammett. . . is a master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer." --The Boston Globe

"The Maltese Falcon is not only probably the best detective story we have ever read, it is an exceedingly well written novel."--The Times Literary Supplement (London)

"Hammett's prose [is] clean and entirely unique.  His characters [are] as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction."--The New York Times -- Review

Customer Reviews

Sam Spade is the man!
I'm a big fan of pulp/hard-boiled fiction. I recently started reading the "classics". I found Dashiell Hammett to be a wonderful author. His prose is very minimal and tight. I loved the style.

The story is a great one. Who doesn't love Sam Spade? I loved the character. Wish he would have made a lot more with him.

Definitely give this one a go.

I can't wait to see the classic film now.

Happy reading, doll.

You'll Read It, Like It, and Ask for Another!
It was the portly Continental Op who usually played the starring role in Dashiell Hammett's written adventures. Sam Spade, tough guy private detective, was never a major character in the books, actually appearing in only one of Hammett's novels. But what a novel! It has been said that Hammett took crime fiction out of the wood-paneled libraries of tweed wearing detectives and put the thugs in the back alleys where they belonged.

Such a back alley is where Sam Spade's partner gets knocked off - fast - in the opening parts of THE MALTESE FALCON. The action only builds up from there, with Spade being surrounded by an assortment of characters, all of dubious morality, and all trying to play him like a violin. Spade, of course, recognizes these goons for exactly what they are. As his own morality is rather flexible, it isn't exactly that difficult for him to recognize the same trait in others. Like the thin blue line between cops and robbers, it doesn't take much to imagine Spade on the opposite side of this whole plot.

The plot, of course, revolves around an old and valuable statue, the falcon itself. Everyone wants it, but it is always just out of reach. Spade is just one more person, no doubt in a long, long line, who just happens to be in the way of those trying to get it. The double crosses and cards up everyone's sleeves would indicate that these cats have been at this quite some time to have picked up all the tricks.

Hammett all but invented crime noir fiction, and it shows. Short and terse dialogue matches the toughness of the characters. The crime boss refers to his flunky as being like a son, but then states that he can always get another son! Spade slapping a guy around and telling him he'll like it and ask for another. These characters recognize only one absolute - his or her own personal objective; finding the bird that everyone wants. Others exist merely as means to get it.

Hammett was a master of the English language and almost everything he wrote is a pleasure to read. THE MALTESE FALCON is no exception. In fact, it is usually considered one of his best, and with good reason. Fast and exciting, it takes us into a world of bad guys and manipulative women. There is a reason some authors stay in print decades after they are gone. Reading Hammett demonstrates why.

You're an Angel, Darling
Plenty of raves for The Maltese Falcon abound as it remains the most quintessential detective story. I actually agree but think otherwise for several points. While the writing at times is good and stylish, Dashiell Hammett can at times be intermittent as he keeps the story taut and then lets it loose. Sometimes, the pacing is fast and slow and fast. The characters are every now and then annoying; take for instance, Brigid O'Shaughnessey, she can be boring with her talk when she goes in circles without reaching a point. Casper Gutman is loquacious and very pedantic. Joel Cairo isn't so bad himself but can be effeminate at times. His lines are not bad though. Speaking of lines, Sam Spade gets the best of them. But I am disappointed that he can be a "talker" especially when he rounds up the usual suspects at his apartment or is alone with Brigid to the end of the story. I prefer him to cut the chase and move fast and think fast pretty much of the time. Still, the story behind The Maltese Falcon is interesting and fun for a mystery read, but the actions, at least a few of them, are extraordinarily and complicatedly done. The logic seems to be overwhelming in certain points yet is essential to the mystery. If I had to choose the better version of The Maltese Falcon, it will be John Huston's film over Dashiell Hammett's book; the movie masterpiece is so much better executed and is regarded as the ultimate film noir of films noir. Everything in the film is exactly perfect and remains the way I envision of The Maltese Falcon; the book is pretty much one to two levels below the film. Again, that doesn't mean The Maltese Falcon is not a worthy read...it still is. Once I've read the book and also seen the picture a few times, the latter outclasses the former. One of the best parts of The Maltese Falcon the book is how perfectly well Dashiell describes the characters; it's a gift indeed. The lines that Sam Spade gets are of the legend stuff. Lo and behold, the ever famous quote "the stuff that dreams are made of" is notably missing in the ending. One of my favorites is when Sam says, "I won't play the sap for you." I liked how he keeps saying "dingus" for the falcon. Another is when he says "you're an angel" to his secretary. While Sam has affection (if that's what it is) for Brigid, I find it strange since they only met for few days and without being intimate. It's hardly realistic. All in all, The Maltese Falcon is an almost classic detective story but not of thoroughly supreme quality á la Doyle's stories of Sherlock Holmes. I am still laughing that our Sam Spade is a blonde. Wherefore art thou, Bogie?