Rating: 
Summary: a classic
Review: This book is a must read for anyone who enjoys film noir or crime/mystery fiction. The pacing, the dialogue, the terse tone are all perfect. I feel it is by far the best of Hammet's work.
Rating:
Summary: Parable on Seeking Unearned Wealth
Review: This is the best known novel of Samuel Dashiell Hammett. It has a relatively simple and concise story. The 1941 film is a condensed version of this book, with some changes for the manners of the times. Like other novels, it begins when a client visits the detective agency and asks them to investigate "Floyd Thursby". Miles Archer takes the job, but is ambushed and killed in a dark alley. Soon after this the body of Floyd Thursby is found. "Miss Wonderly" is the only clue, and Sam Spade investigates; her name is Brigid O' Shaughnessy [note initials]. Brigid has a hidden past. Joel Cairo shows up and hires Spade to find the black bird, "no questions will be asked". This statuette represents great wealth to the seekers. [Is this a satire on the 1920s?] Spade goes to a meeting with Casper Gutman to discuss recovery of the black bird. Chapter 13 gives a history of the black bird as Gutman knows it. But Spade makes an assumption. Things happen, Spade travels to various scenes in his search.
When Spade returns home, he finds Brigid, and then the others laying in wait for him. They have a talk, and Spade finally figures out the solution to Archer's murder. The last chapters are full of talk, but this is needed to solve the murder. Spade acts as a "roper", an agent who plays along with the guilty. The appearance of Gutman's daughter in Chapter 17 is to plant a false clue; no further mention of her in the book. The 1941 film simplifies this event.
The ending reminds me of Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". It would have been better all around if Hammett continued his novels about "Sam Spade", as Raymond Chandler did with "Philip Marlowe". Hammett squandered his time and talent in various self-indulgent activities.
Rating:
Summary: Sam Spade meets his match
Review: Unlike the detectives in Hammett's other novels, Sam Spade works alone--and he works for himself. This independence lends Spade a confidence and an arrogance that distinguishes him from Hammett's other protagonists, and this autonomy is underscored in the first few pages when the firm of Spade & Archer becomes the firm of Samuel Spade--and when he then avoids Archer's widow in part because the dead man's surviving "partners" had been having an affair.
But Spade meets his match in the book's "femme fatale": his client Brigid O'Shaughnessy. She draws the detective into a sordid and shady scheme that involves three of the least savory and most comical underworld figures one will encounter in fiction: the fey Joel Cairo, the kid Wilmer Cook, and the "Fat Man" Casper Gutman. Further exacerbating Spade's attempts to solve the mystery of who killed his partner are the city police, whose ham-fisted meddling and asinine suspicions continually get in the way of Spade's pursuit of revenge and the desire to clear his name.
"The Maltese Falcon" is not simply a whodunit; Hammett, unlike Christie or Macdonald, is concerned less with the placing of clues and the unveiling of secrets and more with the battle of wits between Spade and the woman who has hired him. But, for the reader, it's still filled with surprises, and it's nearly impossible to say more about this book without giving too much away. When I recently read it a second time, I found myself in awe more of the characterizations and the atmosphere than of the page-turning plot--but I still envy those readers who have before them the joy of opening this book for the first time.
Rating:
Summary: None Better
Review: Why should anyone read THE MALTESE FALCON?The classic Bogart flick is a near-perfect redition of Dashiell Hammett's tough-guy dialogue. Director John Huston cast the film so well, that it's impossible to imagine the characters any other way. And in all its twists and turns, the movie captures every nuance of Hammett's plot, and even adds to the mix. So, again: Why should anyone read THE MALTESE FALCON? The same reason why the movie is so watchable time after time; If you haven't read it, you don't know how good it is, and if you have read it, it's so good, you can't wait to read it again. In THE MALTESE FALCON, Hammett nails every element of the detective genre so precisely, so superbly, that it's a wonder anyone ever tried to write another detective novel after him. There are simply none better, a detective novel that goes beyond its pulp roots, and enters the realm of 'capital L' Literature. The plot, for those three people who are unaware, is as follows; Detective Sam Spade has unwittingly become a pawn in a bizarre game of chess. After his partner Miles is killed, he finds himself immersed in a convoluted plot involving a double-dealing moll, a sly fat man, a creepy small man, and a treasured statue of a bird that, if it exists, is worth unimaginable riches. But Spade is unwilling to be used in such a fashion, and starts to set himself up as a player in the scheme, all the while trying madly to figure out exactly what he should do. I have always believed, in the best of the genre, that the actual plot comes second to the characters, and FALCON is no exception. Hammett's Spade is a remarkable resourceful character, living by a code that even he may not truly believe in. The characters of Gutman, Cairo, Brigid, and Wilmar are by turns despicable, evil, comical, and touching. Spade may be the driving force, but Hammett knows that Heaven is in the details; not one minor character is spared his sharp eye for character and ear for dialogue. But Hammett does not skimp on the plot, either. He is well aware of what Alfred Hitchcock named the 'MacGuffin"; the one object that motivates the characters. It doesn't matter whether or not the reader believes in it, it is only important that the characters believe. Hammett knows this, and uses the bird to unmask the evils that men do, the depths to which people will sink for greed, Spade included. They morally descend into murder, betrayal, and a surprising amount of sex (that the movie simply could not show, considering the age it was made in). But why is THE MALTESE FALCON so good? There are many other sterling examples out there, from Raymond Chander's FAREWELL MY LOVELY (a favorite of mine), to Walter Mosley's WHITE BUTTERFLY. But FALCON has that one elusive quality that will keep a reader coming back for more. I wish I knew what that was. I personally believe it is Hammett's understanding of the human condition, of the many contradictions that make up an individual. To use Spade as an example, Hammett has created a character who is cruel, and hard-headed, and greedy, and self-serving. Only a man who knows what a person is capable of could ever attempt to make someone like that the hero. P.S. Incidentally, unlike the otherwise perfect casting in the movie, Spade does not resemble Humphrey Bogart in the slightest. He is a tall, hulking figure, with thinning blond hair and sharp, angular features, often described as a 'blond Satan'. But it is remarkable that, despite this, Bogart's portrayal is so note-perfect that you can't help but picture him anyway.
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