The Maltese Falcon

By Dashiell Hammett

224 pages

Published 1929 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

I read this as a book club selection about a dozen years ago and returned to it this weekend because it is so damned good in the most important ways a book can be good.

The plot – The story line is engaging, suspenseful, emotionally compelling, and fast-paced.

The characterization – The characters are fully imagined, sharply defined, but also full of contrasting nuances.

The theme – The idea that insinuates itself throughout The Maltese Falcon is profound: It’s about deception and self-deception. Every important character and every relationship has elements of falseness. This theme is nicely represented by the various motifs of the story: cosmetics, costume changes, and the Maltese Falcon itself, which is a fake.

The prose – The writing is superb. Taut, clean, and yet beautifully descriptive. Three quick examples:

* “Her eyes were cobalt-blue prayers.”

* “Beginning day had reduced night to a thin smokiness when Spade sat up.”

* “His eyes burned yellowy.”

Interesting Fact: Dashiell Hammett is largely credited with the image of the hard-boiled, noir detective we’re familiar with, as well as bringing literary – and professional – credentials to the detective genre. Under his first name, Samuel – a name that he would ultimately use for his most famous character – he worked with the Pinkerton Detective Agency from 1915 to 1922. The Maltese Falcon is the only full-length Sam Spade novel, but Spade also appears in four lesser-known short stories.

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

From The New York Times: “Hammett’s prose [is] clean and entirely unique. His characters [are] as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction.”