The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett was published in 1930 by Alfred A Knopf, Inc. It is a hardboiled detective work of fiction. The story is told in the third-person narrative.
The main character is Sam Spade, a private detective at the San Francisco Spade & Archer Detective Agency. The agency is approached by a potential client calling herself Ruth Wonderley. It seems Miss Wonderley wants to hire Sam and his partner Miles Archer to follow a man named Floyd Thursby, who ran off with her sister Corinne.
The story told by Miss Wonderley is that she has made arrangements to meet with Thursby. But he refuses to let her see her sister, so she wants to hire the detectives to trail him and find out where he's staying. Neither Sam nor Miles is buying into her story, but the money she will pay them is too good to pass up. Miles volunteers to take the first shift tailing Thursby but is shot and killed while on the job. When Thursby is also later killed, Sam becomes the chief suspect and must now prove his innocence in Thursby's murder.
Sam must also find out who killed Miles. The question is, why? For the answer...who could say it better than Sam Spade and the author himself?
"When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. Then it happens we were in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed it's bad business to let the killer get away with it. It's bad all around... bad for that one organization, bad for every detective everywhere. -Sam Spade"
― Dashiell Hammett, quote from The Maltese Falcon¹
I will not tell you more of the story; you'll have to read the book, which has been in print for over 90 years, so that should tell you something. This book has been the basis for three movies, but only one has become a classic. If you're a film buff, you know which one I mean.
If you like hardboiled detective fiction, especially from the genre's golden age, this book is a classic in every sense of the word. It's a great story and one you'll enjoy.
¹The Maltese Falcon Quotes by Dashiell Hammett | Goodreads
My Personal Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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