Overview

"The definitive masterpiece of the hard-boiled detective genre, The Maltese Falcon first appeared in the pages of Black Mask magazine in 1929 and was almost immediately acknowledged as not only a great crime novel but an enduring masterpiece of American fiction. Tough, cynical PI Sam Spade--a man who, as his creator explained, is ""able to take care of himself in any situation, able to get the best of anybody he comes in contact with""--is hired by the story's irresistible femme fatale, Brigid O'Shaughnessy, to locate the client's sister by tailing her companion. Spade's partner, Miles Archer, takes on the assignment, and quickly both he and the man he was shadowing are murdered. As Spade pursues the mystery of his partner's death, he is drawn into a circle of colorful characters--all of them after a legendary statuette of a falcon fashioned long ago for King Charles of Spain. Made of gold and encrusted with jewels, the falcon is worth a fortune. Missing for centuries, it resurfaced in Paris in 1911, covered in black enamel to disguise its value, and then disappeared again until it was traced to Constantinople--and now, it would seem, to Spade's own backyard."

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9781982525378

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Reviews

Hammett's prose [is] clean and entirely unique. His characters [are] as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction. -- New York Times Jumps from the pages of its genre and into literature...Dorothy Parker, never a pushover, ...claimed to have read the novel some thirty or forty times...Hammett was an original who created a profoundly influential literary template. -- Guardian (London) Hammett virtually invented the hard-boiled crime novel...One of the best-known detective novels ever printed. -- Washington Post The Maltese Falcon is not only probably the best detective story we have ever read, it is an exceedingly well written novel. -- Times Literary Supplement (London) Dashiell Hammett...is a master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer. -- Boston Globe

Author Information

Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He is widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time. In addition to The Maltese Falcon, his pioneering novels include Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Glass Key, and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Thin Man. Robertson Dean has played leading roles on and off Broadway and at dozens of regional theaters throughout the country. He has a BA from Tufts University and an MFA from Yale. His audiobook narration has garnered ten AudioFile Earphones Awards. He now lives in Los Angeles, where he works in film and television in addition to narrating.

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