The Maltese Falcon

Spade laughed.  He patted her hand again and said: “Don’t worry about that now.  He’ll be here in a moment.  Get your business with him over, and we’ll see how we stand.”

“And you’ll let me go about it – with him – in my own way?”

“Sure.”

She turned her hand under his so that her fingers pressed his.  She said softly: “You’re a God-send.”

Spade said: “Don’t overdo it.”

Often considered the quintessential hardboiled private eye novel, The Maltese Falcon is full of memorable characters, gritty dialogue, plot twists and plenty of intrigue.

Dashiell Hammett’s strength here is his experience as a working detective for the Pinkerton Agency.  While often compared to (and confused with) Raymond Chandler, Hammett’s writing is straight to the point.  The action happens without a lot of fluff or gratuitous adjectives.  The characters develop through the dialogue.  You can believe Hammett ran into every one of these jokers during his career. The settings are aptly described without becoming distracting.   It reads like an excellent period piece which, of course, it is not.  It was actually written in the period it describes in such an amazing fashion that time and place both come alive. Think about reading any of what passes for mysteries or thrillers written today set in a contemporary time period.  You would be hard pressed to find any that capture the essence of the time and place they are writing about as well as Hammett captures 1920’s San Francisco.  It sounds very authentic.   If you’ve ever been to San Francisco, it’s a treat to read this book.

Unlike so many books, TV shows and movies of recent past, The Maltese Falcon still sounds like a true story.   Most people are probably familiar with the story from the excellent 1941 Humphrey Bogart picture but there may be few who don’t know it by now.  The movie actually follows the narrative of the book very closely, though some incidents are left out for brevity.  Never mind if you think you know the story, you should still read this book.  Then you should watch the movie again if you like.  Both are excellent. 

Tough talking Private Investigator gets hired by a gorgeous dame who can’t tell the truth, his partner is killed, the cops are after him, a host of unsavory characters beat him, drug him, etc., and he has no idea  what is going on.  Most private eye novels out there revolve around these themes.  But Hammett gets it right and that makes him the master of the hardboiled private eye novel.