The Maltese Falcon

by Samuel Dashiell Hammett

Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon is a classic noir detective novel that brings to life the legendary private detective Sam Spade. In 1920s San Francisco, Spade is drawn into a complex of deception, intrigue, and murder after a mysterious lady, Brigid O'Shaughnessy, enters his office asking him to assist her in retrieving a priceless relic—the Maltese Falcon. While Spade winds his way through the seedy underbelly of criminals, cheats, and double-crosses, he is determined to uncover the secret about the falcon that everyone is clamoring for but nobody actually comprehends. Guided by an astute intuition for deceit and a robust moral sense, Spade engages deadly enemies and crosses the moral border between good and evil to grasp the alluring treasure.

229 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 15, 2025

Reviews

[Nelson Pyles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm glad to have read it, but frankly, there really isn't a single character in the book that was remotely likeable. Sam Spade is to be fair, an asshole. I was rooting for a secondary character to gun him down abruptly with little fanfare and hide the body in an alley.

Seriously.

I liked the writing and if the goal was to create a character that was really just an asshole, success but I didn't have any fun with it. Spade isn't a man's man, or anything admirable. In the end, he was the whiniest of all of them; the sap he said he would play for nobody.

[Stephanie Kesler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gads…well written, great use of language. BUT, the women - I couldn’t stand how they were portrayed. Simpering little fools - even the murderer. Oh, and our gay characters didn’t come out well either. I understand, books and their times, but good grief….

[Nancy Bloom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast engaging read

I liked how quickly the book moved. The character of Sam Spade was very colorful. I cannot wait to see the movie.

[John Galluzzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know that at the time it was probably suspenseful and gripping - and not that it isn't today - but I laughed most of my way through The Maltese Falcon.

The author was a master at setting up risky situations, simply by playing chess games with characters. If this one leaves the room with that one, what information could they spill that could put Sam Spade (the lead character) in hot water? Spade, it turns out, plays that game better than all of the rest combined, including the damsel in distress, the money man, the gunslinger, the local cops, all of them.

This book just oozes everything there is to love about the noir detective genre and it feels to me like it may well have been the standard. Spade is a tough bastard who is living the single life, even playing his women off each other like the crooks he works with for a living. He plays the long con with the criminals with whom he comes in contact while searching for the famed falcon statuette. He'll take a punch if he has to, to get to the bottom of a case. And he never, ever, shows his hand.

The story is full of twists, turns and cliffhangers, hinting at a follow-up volume until the final words play out. For me, one of the most fun connections I see is a potential tie-in to the FX TV animated spy series Archer. In that show one of the long-running subplots is the main character's constant search for the identity of his father. He grows up alone with his mother (and forms an unnatural attachment to her) and in flashbacks to his youth, life is depicted in a noir-like world. Sam Spade's partner in the detective agency was Miles Archer. Sam was having an affair with Archer's wife. Could Sam Spade have been Archer's father?

We will never know.