false 29999 67 Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammett's archetypally tough San Francisco detective, is more <i>noir</i> than <I>L.A. Confidential</I> and more vulnerable than Raymond Chandler's Marlowe. In <I>The Maltese Falcon</I>, the best known of Hammett's Sam Spade novels (including <I>The Dain Curse</I> and <I>The Glass Key</I>), Spade is tough enough to bluff the toughest thugs and hold off the police, risking his reputation when a beautiful woman begs for his help, while knowing that betrayal may deal him a new hand in the next moment.<p> Spade's partner is murdered on a stakeout; the cops blame him for the killing; a beautiful redhead with a heartbreaking story appears and disappears; grotesque villains demand a payoff he can't provide; and everyone wants a fabulously valuable gold statuette of a falcon, created as tribute for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. Who has it? And what will it take to get it back? Spade's solution is as complicated as the motives of the seekers assembled in his hotel room, but the truth can be a cold comfort indeed.<p> Spade is bigger (and blonder) in the book than in the <I>movie</I>, and his Mephistophelean countenance is by turns seductive and volcanic. Sam knows how to fight, whom to call, how to rifle drawers and secrets without leaving a trace, and just the right way to call a woman "Angel" and convince her that she is. He is the quintessence of intelligent cool, with a wise guy's perfect pitch. If you only know the movie, read the book. If you're riveted by <I>Chinatown</I> or wonder where Robert B. Parker's Spenser gets his comebacks, read the master. <I>--Barbara Schlieper</I> 980184 book 1929 The Maltese Falcon total:5250|5:1408|4:2065|3:1428|2:294|1:55| 5250 20227 7091 536 2 6 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1968 Wed Jan 07 16:49:37 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 08 04:22:56 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 3 false false Sun Jan 11 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 08 19:11:52 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 11 15:02:44 -0800 2009 The Maltese Falcon? At the beginning, natch! This is a story that nearly everyone is familiar with, if only in a passing way. Bogart and Peter Lorre's characters are nearly permanently imprinte...more...]]> 5 2 false true Fri Sep 25 12:58:08 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 15 13:21:03 -0700 2009
He's an emotional blank when it comes to the death of his partner, Miles Archer. Spade couldn't care less upon receiving that 2 a.m. phonecall from the police. Everyone has issues with coworkers, but this is ridiculous.

Then...then Spade mana...more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 09 09:27:39 -0700 2008 Thu May 01 09:09:05 -0700 2008
I'd seen the movie, so I d...more...]]> 4 2 false false Tue Jan 13 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 08 03:02:05 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 14 09:51:56 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Jan 31 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 12 10:44:38 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 10:13:58 -0800 2009 The Maltese Falcon is probably the first great hard-boiled P.I. novel. It is not the first detective novel, and Hammett's protagonist, Sam Spade, has his literary progenitors (e.g., C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, Nick Carter, Hercule Poirot), but the "hard-boiled P.I."...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jan 21 21:10:45 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 21 21:12:23 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Tue Jan 13 17:30:27 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 13 17:30:41 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 10 07:43:07 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 10 08:09:37 -0700 2009 The Maltese Falcon--although I wouldn't go out of my way to read anything else by Dashiell Hammett.

This book was intriguing for se...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Sep 27 10:05:30 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 10:08:55 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Sep 06 08:16:09 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 06 08:30:26 -0700 2009 The Maltese Falcon changed everything>

The Maltese Falcon is about the one very complicated case that the private eye team of Sam Spade and Archer. It begins a simple case to keep an eye on a supposed kidnapper, commissione...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jul 23 21:40:58 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 23 21:41:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jul 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 10 21:49:41 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 10 21:55:00 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Jul 08 16:21:44 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 08 16:34:17 -0700 2009 I also really liked the character of Spade as he was not the cookie-cutter detective typ...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Mar 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 15 05:24:32 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 16 06:18:23 -0700 2009
So guess it's about t...more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun May 18 04:41:13 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 04 19:39:53 -0700 2008
This is one of the very rare occasions where I would be of the opinion that the film i...more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Sep 15 17:19:08 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 18 17:06:32 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Tue Jun 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 14 10:29:49 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 16:16:07 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Wed Sep 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 25 20:43:43 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 29 14:49:17 -0700 2009 1 The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. I wanted to compare Hammett + Spade and Chandler + Marlowe. After I finished chapter 1 in Falcon, I read chapter 1 in Big. After I finished chapter 2 in Falcon, I read chapter 2 in Big. and so on and so forth.
By the time I got to cha...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Apr 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 03 09:07:52 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 08 06:41:15 -0700 2009
Sometimes, when I read s...more...]]>