The Maltese Falcon
first edition cover (1930)
Author(s)	Dashiell Hammett
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Detective fiction
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date	1930
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)

The Maltese Falcon is a 1930 detective novel by Dashiell Hammett, originally serialized in the magazine Black Mask. The story has been adapted several times for the cinema. The main character, Sam Spade, appears only in this novel and in three lesser known short stories, yet is widely cited as the crystallizing figure in the development of the hard-boiled private detective genre – Raymond Chandler's character Philip Marlowe, for instance, was strongly influenced by Hammett's Spade. Spade was a departure from Hammett's nameless detective, The Continental Op. Sam Spade combined several features of previous detectives, most notably his cold detachment, keen eye for detail, and unflinching determination to achieve his own justice.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Maltese Falcon 56th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Analysis 3 Adaptations 4 Further Reading and Listening 5 Notes 6 External links

Plot

Sam Spade and his partner Miles Archer are hired by a Miss Wonderly to follow a man, Floyd Thursby, who has allegedly run off with Wonderly's younger sister. Spade and Archer take the assignment because the money is good, but Spade implies that the woman looks like trouble.

That night, Spade is awakened by a phone call informing that Archer has been killed. When questioned at the scene about Archer's activities, Spade tells Sgt. Polhaus that Archer was tailing Thursby, but refuses to reveal their client's identity. Later that night, Polhaus and Lieutenant Dundy visit Spade and inquire about his whereabouts in the last few hours. The officers say that Thursby was also killed and that Spade is a suspect. They have no evidence against Spade at the moment, but tell him that they will be conducting an investigation into the matter.

The next day, Archer's wife Iva, with whom he has been having an affair, asks Spade if he killed Miles. He tells her to leave, and orders his secretary Effie Perine to remove all of Archer's belongings from the office. He then visits his client at her hotel, where he learns her real name is Brigid O'Shaughnessy, that she never had a sister, and Thursby was an acquaintance who had betrayed her.

Later, Spade is visited by Joel Cairo, who offers Spade $5,000 if he can retrieve a figurine of a black bird that has recently arrived in San Francisco. Suddenly, Cairo pulls a gun, and declares his intention to search Spade's office. But when he approaches Spade to search him, Spade knocks him unconscious. After cataloguing Cairo's belongings and questioning him. Spade is then contacted by O'Shaughnessy. Sensing a connection between her and Cairo, Spade casually mentions that Cairo has contacted him. O'Shaughnessy becomes extremely nervous, and asks Spade to arrange a meeting with Cairo. Spade agrees.

When Cairo and O'Shaughnessy meet at Spade's apartment, they make reference to events that Spade does not comprehend. Cairo says he is ready to pay for the figurine, but O'Shaughnessy says she does not have it at the moment. They also refer to a mysterious figure, "G", of whom they seem to be scared. Eventually, O'Shaughnessy insinuates that Cairo is a homosexual, and he insinuates that she uses her body to get what she wants. As the two begin to fight, the police show up at the apartment. Spade greets them at the door but refuses to let them in. Just as they are about to leave, Cairo screams for help. They force their way into the apartment, but Spade invents a story about how Cairo and O'Shaughnessy were merely play-acting. The officers seem to accept, if not believe, the story, but they take Cairo with them to the station. Spade then tries to get more information from O'Shaughnessy, who stalls.

The next morning, Spade goes to Cairo's hotel. Cairo shows up disheveled, saying that he was held by the police all night. Meanwhile, Spade notices that he is being tailed by a kid named Wilmer Cook. He confronts the gunsel, and tells him that both he and his boss, "G," will have to deal with Spade at some point. He later receives a call from Casper Gutman, who wishes to meet with him. Gutman says he will pay handsomely for the black bird. Spade bluffs, implying that he can get it, but wants to know what it is first.

Gutman tells him that the figurine was a gift from the Knights of Malta to the King of Spain, but was lost in transit. It was covered with fine jewels, but acquired a layer of black enamel at some time to conceal its value. Gutman learned of it seventeen years earlier, and had been looking for it ever since. He traced it to the home of Russian general Kemidov, and sent Cairo, Thursby, and O'Shaughnessy to retrieve it. The latter pair stole the figurine, but decided to keep it for themselves. Spade starts to get dizzy, and when he attempts to leave, Wilmer trips him and kicks him in the head.

Spade awakens and returns to his office. Captain Jacobi of the La Paloma arrives, seriously injured, and carrying a package, which he drops on the floor, and then dies. Spade opens the package, and finds the falcon. He receives a call from O'Shaughnessy, asking for his help. To prevent losing the item, Spade stores it at a bus station luggage counter and mails himself the collection tag. He goes to the dock where La Paloma is anchored, but the ship is on fire. He then proceeds to the address Brigid O'Shaughnessy had given on the phone. There he finds a drugged girl, her stomach all scratched up by a pin in order to keep herself awake. She gives him information about Brigid's whereabouts, but it is a false lead.

When he arrives back at his apartment, he finds O'Shaughnessy in a doorway. Inside, Wilmer, Cairo, and Gutman are waiting. Gutman hands Spade $10,000 in exchange for the bird. Spade takes the money, but in addition says that they need a "fall guy" to take the blame for the murders of Thursby and Jacobi, if not Archer as well. Cairo and Gutman agree to make Wilmer the fall guy. Gutman proceeds to tell Spade the missing pieces of the story. After finishing, Gutman warns Spade that O'Shaughnessy is not to be trusted.

Spade places a call to his secretary Effie and asks her to pick up the figurine. Effie brings it to Spade's apartment, and Spade hands the package to Gutman. He quickly learns that it is a fake. He realizes with dismay that the Russian must have discovered its true value and made a copy. Meanwhile, Wilmer escapes. Gutman regains his composure, and decides to continue the search. Gutman asks Spade for the $10,000. Spade keeps $1,000 for his time and expenses. Cairo and Gutman leave.

Immediately after Cairo and Gutman leave, Spade phones Sgt. Polhaus, tells him the story, and tells him that Gutman and Cairo are leaving town. Afterwards, Spade asks O'Shaughnessy why she killed Archer. She says she wanted Thursby out of the picture, so she hired Archer to scare him off. When Thursby didn't leave, she killed Archer and attempted to pin the crime on Thursby. When Thursby was killed, she knew that Gutman was in town, so she came back to Spade for protection.

Spade replies that the penalty for murder is most likely twenty years. If they hang her, he says that he will always remember her. He says that Miles was his partner, and that he is going to turn her in to the police for the murder. O'Shaughnessy begs him not to, but he replies that he has no choice. The only way he can avoid being charged is to say he played both sides against each other.

When the police arrive, Spade turns over O'Shaughnessy as Archer's killer. They tell Spade that Wilmer was waiting for Gutman at the hotel and shot him when he arrived.

Analysis

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In this novel, Hammett redefines many of the conventions of the "hard-boiled" detective genre. Spade is a bitter, sardonic character who lets the police and the criminals think he is in with the criminals while he works singlemindedly to catch the crooks. Brigid O'Shaughnessy is the classic femme fatale. The other crooks are manipulative and self-centered (or merely self-centered) with no concern for anyone's well-being except their own.

However, unlike some other hard-boiled detectives who have a strong sense of idealism underneath the cynical shell, Hammett never provides a clear statement of Spade's notion of morality. Spade attempts to explain himself to Brigid O'Shaughnessy with the Flitcraft parable, in which Hammett makes an oblique reference to the philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, but O'Shaughnessy has no idea what he is getting at.

At the time of Miles Archer's death, Spade is having an affair with Archer's wife, and while he does the "right thing" in the end, catching and turning in Archer's murderer, his reasons for doing so are somewhat ambiguous. Although he expresses a strong professional ethic ("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") it also has an element of self-interest about it ("[W]hen 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"). It is left unclear whether Spade might have chosen not to turn Brigid in if there was a bigger monetary gain for him ("...a lot more money would have been one more item on your side"), but certain that his emotional attachment to her (however strong that is) is not sufficient to overcome the risks involved with letting her go. Spade's blatant calculus of risk, reward and duty with which Hammett ends the novel contains remarkably little trace of morality.

The writing style is unusual in that the reader is told what each character does and says, but no-one's inner thoughts are ever revealed.

Adaptations

The novel has been filmed three times, twice under its original title:

• The Maltese Falcon (1931), the first version, pre-Code production starring Ricardo Cortez and Bebe Daniels
• Satan Met a Lady (1936), a light-comedy adaptation starring Bette Davis and Warren William, with Sam Spade becoming "Ted Shane".
• The Maltese Falcon (1941) the third version, considered to be a film noir classic, starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet.

In addition, there have been many spoofs and sequels, including 1975's The Black Bird, a spoof featuring George Segal as Sam Spade, Jr., and Elisha Cook Jr. and Lee Patrick reprising their roles from the 1941 film.

• The Maltese Falcon (2001), an audio adaptation by the BBC starring Jane Lapotaire, Tom Wilkinson, and Peter Acre was published as an audio book in 2001^[1] and broadcast on BBC Radio 7 in 2009.^[2]

• The Maltese Falcon (2005), the official authorized stage adaptation, was produced by The Long Beach Shakespeare Company, and premiered in 2007. In 2005, an earlier stage version of the book had been adapted and directed by Martin Pope. This adaptation, by Helen Borgers,^[3] was authorized and approved by Julie M. Rivett, Dashiell Hammett's granddaughter. Both Jo Hammett, Dashiell Hammett's only living daughter, and Julie Rivett attended the premiere. The play follows the book closely and includes Spade's Flitcraft story. Two years later, in the Fall of 2007, the same company mounted a second adaptation.

• Borgers' version of The Maltese Falcon (2007), opened in Huntsville, Alabama on the AlphaStage of the Renaissance Theatre, on Wednesday, April 2, 2008 in association with the Huntsville Public Library "BIG READ" Initiative. Directed by Jim Zieliński, the play was part of a series of Falcon-related events. An additional, final run took place May 15-17 of that year.

• Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon (2008), a Grammy-nominated audiobook dramatization by the Hollywood Theater of the Ear, starring Michael Madsen, Sandra Oh, and Edward Herrmann, was released in 2008 by Blackstone Audio.

Further Reading and Listening

• Herron, Don. The Dashiell Hammett Tour: Thirtieth Anniversary Guidebook. San Francisco: Vince Emery Productions, 2009.
• Layman, Richard. Literary Masterpieces, Volume 3: The Maltese Falcon. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group, 2000.
• Layman, Richard, ed. Discovering The Maltese Falcon and Sam Spade: The Evolution of Dashiell Hammett's Masterpiece, Including John Huston's Movie with Humphrey Bogart. San Francisco: Vince Emery Productions, 2005.
• Miller, Walter James. Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon: A Critical Commentary. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.
• Stone, Dan. An Introduction to The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett: Audio Guide. Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 2006.

Notes

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Maltese Falcon (novel)

• The Maltese Falcon - Copies Without an Original
• Listen to the Old Time Radio adaption of The Maltese Falcon starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet.
• The Apartment of Dashiell Hammett and Sam Spade
• The Pickwick Hotel in San Francisco was the featured location in the novel.