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The Maltese Falcon (Annotated): The Noir Edition | Including a 1920s Slang Dictionary, Character Profiles, and Historical Context of San Francisco
THE DETECTIVE WHO DEFINED A GENRE. THE BIRD THAT WAS WORTH KILLING FOR.
“The stuff that dreams are made of.”
Enter the fog-drenched streets of 1928 San Francisco, where the gin is cold, the shadows are long, and trust is a liability. Sam Spade is a private detective with a cynical code and a sharp jaw, operating in a world where the police are just another gang and every client is lying.
When the stunning and deceptive Brigid O’Shaughnessy walks into his office pleading for help, Spade is plunged into a deadly treasure hunt for a statuette of incalculable value—the Maltese Falcon. Pursued by the effeminate but dangerous Joel Cairo, the philosophical "Fat Man" Casper Gutman, and a gun-happy youth, Spade must navigate a labyrinth of double-crosses to find the truth.
Dashiell Hammett’s masterpiece is not just a mystery; it is the origin story of the hardboiled detective. It stripped the genre of its polite parlor tricks and gave it a raw, street-level reality that changed literature forever.
THIS EXCLUSIVE "NOIR EDITION"
🕵️ The Noir A curated glossary of 1920s underworld slang. Learn the difference between a "gunsel" and a "grifter," and discover what it really means to "give someone the Baumes rush."
🌉 Shadows and Fog (New Introduction): An original essay exploring how Hammett used his real-life experience as a Pinkerton detective to invent the modern anti-hero.
🥃 Spade’s City (Historical Context): Dive into the real history of San Francisco in the Jazz Age—a boomtown of speakeasies, corruption, and fog that served as the perfect backdrop for murder.
👥 Dramatis Detailed character profiles of the iconic cast, analyzing their roles in the "MacGuffin" chase that fueled the plot.
Perfect for fans of true crime, literary history, and the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
Experience the novel that defined "cool" for a century. Read the Annotated Noir Edition today.
“The stuff that dreams are made of.”
Enter the fog-drenched streets of 1928 San Francisco, where the gin is cold, the shadows are long, and trust is a liability. Sam Spade is a private detective with a cynical code and a sharp jaw, operating in a world where the police are just another gang and every client is lying.
When the stunning and deceptive Brigid O’Shaughnessy walks into his office pleading for help, Spade is plunged into a deadly treasure hunt for a statuette of incalculable value—the Maltese Falcon. Pursued by the effeminate but dangerous Joel Cairo, the philosophical "Fat Man" Casper Gutman, and a gun-happy youth, Spade must navigate a labyrinth of double-crosses to find the truth.
Dashiell Hammett’s masterpiece is not just a mystery; it is the origin story of the hardboiled detective. It stripped the genre of its polite parlor tricks and gave it a raw, street-level reality that changed literature forever.
THIS EXCLUSIVE "NOIR EDITION"
🕵️ The Noir A curated glossary of 1920s underworld slang. Learn the difference between a "gunsel" and a "grifter," and discover what it really means to "give someone the Baumes rush."
🌉 Shadows and Fog (New Introduction): An original essay exploring how Hammett used his real-life experience as a Pinkerton detective to invent the modern anti-hero.
🥃 Spade’s City (Historical Context): Dive into the real history of San Francisco in the Jazz Age—a boomtown of speakeasies, corruption, and fog that served as the perfect backdrop for murder.
👥 Dramatis Detailed character profiles of the iconic cast, analyzing their roles in the "MacGuffin" chase that fueled the plot.
Perfect for fans of true crime, literary history, and the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
Experience the novel that defined "cool" for a century. Read the Annotated Noir Edition today.
250 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 23, 2025
6 people are currently reading
About the author
Dashiell Hammett
615 books2,862 followersAlso wrote as Peter Collinson, Daghull Hammett, Samuel Dashiell, Mary Jane Hammett
Dashiell Hammett, an American, wrote highly acclaimed detective fiction, including The Maltese Falcon (1930) and The Thin Man (1934).
Samuel Dashiell Hammett authored hardboiled novels and short stories. He created Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) among the enduring characters. In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on film, Hammett "is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time" and was called, in his obituary in the New York Times, "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction."
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashiell...
Dashiell Hammett, an American, wrote highly acclaimed detective fiction, including The Maltese Falcon (1930) and The Thin Man (1934).
Samuel Dashiell Hammett authored hardboiled novels and short stories. He created Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) among the enduring characters. In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on film, Hammett "is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time" and was called, in his obituary in the New York Times, "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction."
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashiell...
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