Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but overrated . . .
Review: Maybe the movie spoiled the freshness of this book for me. Throughout the tale I couldn't shake the voices of Bogart and Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet . . . or the images of them elaborately dancing around one another, in search of the mysterious statuette. Although the book had more detail and events than the film (including allusions to homosexuality and some outright lovemaking between Sam Spade and the mysterious woman from Hong Kong), the screenplay did catch quite a bit of this noirish quest so that the book seemed almost a shadow of the movie in the end. Indeed, Bogart and company made this tale decidedly their own.I suppose this is as much a credit to Hammett and his creation as it was to the director, actors and writers of the film it inspired. But too much of this book depended for me on not knowing what was going to happen. But, of course, I did. Some of the dark resonance was lost too, by this fact, while the characters came across as mere caricatures of themselves (which, of course, they weren't since they preceded the film's cast). Nor did Spade's sharp retorts, high-handed attitude with women, cops and crooks, and his generally cold (not cool) disposition seem to me to mask a deeper and more sensitive soul, despite his final "noble" speech to Brigid O'Shaughnessy. It is certainly not entirely the fault of the book that its impact has been dissipated by the existence of a film which so fully captures it, but it does suggest that the book lacks something at its core since so much of it depends on knowing (or not knowing!) what is happening rather than on seeing it all a-fresh in the mind's eye through the medium of the printed word. That the characters lacked any real depth (their development being fully realized in the movement of the plot alone), worked decidely against the magic of the book. And, regrettably, the long-anticipated denouement with the falcon proved, in the final analysis, to be insufficient to redeem the complex plot and its mysterious machinations. And yet, withal, the book was tight and quick and kept me reading . . . though it lacked the richness of character I detected in The Glass Key which was, I think, Hammett's better piece by far. SWM
Rating: 
Summary: sam spade is simply the best
Review: The grandaddy of private eye novels--and, for my money, still the best. All the others are copycats. Even Ray Chandler with all his cute similies pales next to Hammet. Forget Robert Parlker and Sue Grafton and Paretsky & all the others... Dashiel Hammet was simply the best at it. A classic, no doubt about it--even better than Huston's fine film version of the book.
Rating:
Summary: A classic work by one of America's greatst writers
Review: Dashiell Hammett still hasn't gotten his proper due. Although pretty much universally regarded as the founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, and considered--along with Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald--to be one of the three classic masters of the genre, he is still somewhat marginalized as being merely a detective writer. In fact, Hammett was much more than that. He was one of the crucial figures in the 1920s in liberating American prose from those writers who were intent upon imitating continental styles, such as Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis, who consciously followed Zola's realism. Hammett was one of the key figures in developing a prose style that was uniquely American. His sentences are tough, terse, and urban. THE MALTESE FALCON is my favorite Hammett novel, though not my favorite work by Hammett. He was a very good novelist, but he was an extraordinary short story writer, and if one wants the very, very best of his work, one should go to the collection of Continental Op stories (the Op was also his primary character) contained in THE CONTINENTAL OP. Still, this novel belongs on the shortest of short lists of the finest hardboiled detective novels ever written. The novel's overall status would be much higher if we didn't feel such a powerful compulsion to pigeonhole our writers. Hammett at his best certainly rivals 1920s contemporaries such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald. The plot is familiar to anyone who has seen the Bogart version of the novel. For a Hays Office era film, it does a great job of presenting most of the details of the novel, although Joel Cairo's homosexuality, blantant in the novel, is muted in the film. The film is a very great film, but what a fan of the film will discover upon coming to the novel is that it is also a very great novel. Some great movies are based upon relatively weak novels (a specialty of Alfred Hitchcock). In this case, both are masterpieces. Any lover of the film will find the same delightful characters, the same riveting dialog, and the same smokey atmosphere. Almost all the great lines of the movie are also in the book. The largest single difference will be the character of Sam Spade. Hammett's Spade is a tad more leering, a bit more self-serving, a little less moral. Bogart's Sam Spade seems to have been filtered through Chandler's knight errant Philip Marlowe. Anyone who is a fan of American literature needs to read this book. It is one of the greatest works by one of the most influential American writers of the first part of the 20th century. What is amazing is how sharp and edgy the prose remains after seventy years. A must read.
Rating:
Summary: Stands the Test of Time
Review: I highly recommend this book. It is just fun to read! And, if you think about it, how many 70-year-old novels can you say that about? About 110 pages in I thought "Damn, this is like Hemingway being entertaining!" And what I meant was this: the prose style is as tight, Hammett's imagination as realized and intense, as Hemingway's was (if not moreso) in his "The Sun Also Rises" which was published just three years earlier. There's not a wasted sentence in "The Maltese Falcon." And the cartoonish characters which it was apparently criticized for when it was first published (Spade, Effie Perine, O'Shaughnessy, Cairo, Gutman, and the mysterious Russian Kemidov!) are part of what make this so readable in 2002. They're fun! Goofy, sure -- but fun and vivid and perfectly drawn as any other characters in any other novel I've read from that period. Hammett was reinventing the detective genre and if you are capable of seeing that kind'a thing when you read fiction, you will see it here. I highly recommend "The Maltese Falcon." Stacey
Rating:
Summary: Pulp fiction at it's best
Review: Sam Spade is the quintessential hard-nosed take-no-bull detective of literature and film. Every writer tries to live up to Dashiell Hammett's Spade, and though they may come close they can never match the original.
All the characters are perfectly described to the last detail, and strangely enough resemble their movie counterparts so much you would think Hammett had Lorre, Greenstreet and Astor in mind when he penned the novel.
Sam Spade is a man out for his own, watching the case unfold with detached bemusement. He struts through the novel without a care, only involved in the case because he was paid to do so.
The ending is fantastic, and does justice to all the characters.
The best detective novel you ever will read.
Rating:
Summary: Makes you want to roll your own smokes
Review: I recently saw The Maltese Falcon, with Humphrey Bogart. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to read the book. Dashiell Hammett is a wonderful writer, and Sam Spade is twice as colorful in the book. If you like detective stories, read this one. In fact, read it even if you don't like detective stories, because you will like this one.
Rating:
Summary: Mandatory reading before picking up any other crime fiction
Review: Fabulous defined characters ... each one jumps out of the pages of the novel. I have (unfortunately) not seen the movie, yet I could easily visualise each scene in the book in a way that it left me amazed.
I would stack it up with the real classics in my library.
Rating:
Summary: A book to read, no matter how well you know the movie
Review: The book's definitely grittier than the movie version. Personally, I found it easier to picture Howard Duff, who was radio's Sam Spade, while reading the book. And the character of Wilmer is much younger than the henchman in the movie. This particular fact sharpens the portrayal of Joe Cairo's homosexuality and makes it more evident than in the film. The book goes into further detail concerning Spade's affair with his late partner's wife and adds a "life goes on" twist in the last sentences of the book. There's more of the secretary, Effie Klinker and more of Spade's encounters with the police. Also, there is Gutman's young daughter, who wasn't in the movie. Most importantly, though, the book gives the main character more rough edges, rounds him out a bit better. And the book better fleshes out and portrays the greed of the characters and that greed's consequences. Careful reading here will give you new insights into the story, and is quite recommended.
Rating:
Summary: How Far Will Spade Go in Search of the Truth?
Review: Will Spade protect the beautiful Brigid for whom he has already developed a romantic interest? Why is he so intent on avanging the death of a partner he disliked? Can Spade be bribed? How far will he go in search of the truth? As we learn the answers to these questions, we begin to appreciate that Sam Spade is one of the toughest and most independent private detectives ever created. If I was asked to recommend only one mystery novel, THE MALTESE FALCON would be my first choice.
Rating:
Summary: Great fun
Review: I can't remember the last time I had as much pure fun reading a novel than I did with this one. Sam Spade is the prototype for all the hard-boiled detective types that came after, and a debt of gratitude is owed to Dashiell Hamett for just about inventing the genre. Contrary to some recent reviews, I think the book stands easily on its own without a need to compare it to the movie. In fact, I'd say the movie owes its success to the pace and atmosphere created in the book. If you've never seen the movie, you should read the book and then rent the movie. If you have seen the movie, I'll bet you'll really enjoy the book anyway. It's just great fun.
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