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Mar 02, 2009

Robert rated it:

Finished this yesterday, and must say I enjoyed it. Gores has the Hammett style down and it seems like it could well be the "McCoy" instead of the pastiche/homage that it is--to be sure, it is in the style of "Red Harvest" or "The Dain Curse" . . . three shporter separate adventures with a through line. There are a couple of howlers, though, for instance on p. 62 Gores has Spade sit on a red vinyl stool--forgetting that Vinyl as we know it wasn't viable before More...

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Dec 12, 2008

Spiros rated it:

Fittingly, it all starts with Flitcraft.
In the middle of THE MALTESE FALCON, which has been called the first existential detective novel, Sam Spade tells Brigid O'Shaugnessy about a case involving a man named Flitcraft, who disappeared from his affluent life in Tacoma, only to be tracked down ten years later in Spokane, living an identical life. This story, which has no bearing whatsoever on the MALTESE FALCON, is Joe Gores' starting point for this prequel.
As with his previous novel, More...

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Dec 07, 2011

HBalikov rated it:

Dashiell Hammett wrote some great yarns. My favorite may be the brutal Red Harvest, but he showed a lighter touch with The Thin Man and built on his own detective experience with The Continental Op.

His excellent noir, The Maltese Falcon, was the only story that featured private eye, Sam Spade.
Anyone who saw the movie was struck with Humphrey Bogart's ability to vitalize Spade. And his monologue at the end, directed at Mary Astor is perfection.

Now with the blessing of th More...

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Feb 17, 2011

MB rated it:

Finished reading Spade & Archer (2009) by Joe Gores on the way to work this morning. Subtitled “The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon”, Spade & Archer presents three episodes in Sam Spade’s life from 1921, 1925 and 1928; each episode is a nearly self-contained novella, about half the length of The Maltese Falcon. The last ends about half an hour before The Maltese Falcon begins (well the last five paragraphs are a verbatim quote from the first page of The Maltese Falcon).

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Sep 27, 2010

Mike rated it:

I read this book several months ago and I could have sworn that I added a review for it... oh well.

I know that to some people it might seem like bad manners or even heresy to presume to take the Bogart-character-to-be and write a tale around him and his partner. But who among us has never read a collaboration of two or more authors? Or a book completed posthumously by a second author? Or something ghost-written (ok, leave that one out of the "good" side of the scoreboard More...

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Jun 10, 2009

Robyn rated it:

That Joe Gores is a huge fan of Dashiell Hammett is no secret - if your missed his Hammett (Crime Masterworks)- you will want to go back and order it after reading Spade & Archer.

This book gives you everything you expect from a Sam Spade novel - mysteries, keen detective work, shootings, damsels in distress, slimey partners, and the quick hard and fast dialogue that Humphrey Bogart pushed to iconic!

Spade & Archer will draw you in from the beginning with Spade impersonatin More...

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May 20, 2009

Tony rated it:

Gores, Joe. SPADE & ARCHER. (2009). ****. Touted as a prequel to Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon,” it could be – especially with the end that obviously leads into that case. It’s really a P.I. novel using Sam Spade and his one-time partner, Miles Archer, as the protagonists. Although several cases are covered, there is a common thread through all of them – the villain. Sam has just left the Continental Detective Agency in Seattle and moved on to San Francisco to start his own busin More...

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Feb 27, 2009

Erin rated it:

i know. why do so many writers feel an urge to write a prequel or sequel to somebody else's great work of literature? but still, i picked this book up. it may have been the cover that drew my eye... noir to the last detail. and gores does a great job with it. first, he's able to write in the mood of the great hammett. while that means i still don't know whether or not gores is a good writer, it did enable me to really enjoy this story. its sprawling -- covers over a decade in the life of More...

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Apr 15, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine rated it:

Nearly all critics begin their reviews with one, head-scratching question: Why? The pages of book sections are littered with excoriating reviews of prequels to classics like Gone With The Wind and The Godfather. So it's an even greater tribute to Gores's achievement that, but for one glaring exception, he creates a chorus of converts. This meticulously researched backstory is a highly entertaining novel in its own right, albeit one that happens to cast new light on one of crime fiction's most co

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Aug 01, 2011

Kurt rated it:

This book isn't terrible, and Gores clearly loves Dashiell Hammett, the Maltese Falcon, and San Francisco of the 1920s, but Gores' prequel is mostly valuable for showcasing how phenomenally talented Dashiell Hammett was. There are many things to like about this story, which covers seven years of Sam Spade's life, ending with a scene that overlaps an early scene of Hammett's classic. The action is very much in keeping with Hammett's style, in which bad things happen to people, but mostly off-scre More...

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Sep 26, 2009

Terry rated it:

I love the works of Dashiell Hammett and I liked the earlier books of Joe Gores, but I hit a wall on this one and almost gave it up early on. I stuck with it and became a little more engaged as the book progressed. The plotting is a lot like Hammett, but the writing is arch and self-conscious -- and I found myself editing constantly, which is not a good way to enjoy a novel. Gores just tries too hard -- or maybe I'd be disappointed if I go back and read Hammett again. He also tries too hard More...

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Jun 14, 2009

Jrobertus rated it:

This book is a wonderfully written prequel to The Maltese falcon. Joe Gores writes in the Hammett style and he has got the character down cold. The novel begins in 1921; Spade is back from the war and working as an Op for the Continental Detective Agency in Seattle. He finishes a case there, quits the agency and returns to San Francisco to set up his own office. Gores weaves a complex of plots, but ties them up neatly. Despite the title, the book is not mostly about how Archer becomes his par More...

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Mar 25, 2009

Vicki rated it:

This was a fun prequel to The Maltese Falcon recently written by Joe Gores. I read The Maltese Falcon earlier this month and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. In fact, I was drawn to get this book because I wanted to read more about Sam Spade. I'm not sure the Spade in S&A is really the Spade of TMF--even at the end of S&A, which closes where TMF opens. But he's close enough that I was pretty well satisfied by the book. The period set-pieces and atmosphere were great, and I liked how More...

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Mar 08, 2009

Trish rated it:

Gores does a magnificent job of recreating the era in which Hammett wrote and the rhythm of his style. I thought the first two parts of the book were authentic and well-done, with tension, dialogue, and human drama. I was less enamored of the last part. I see in the acknowledgements that he had help with that part. I thought the third part unconvincing and slow, and left loose ends in my mind about the main character, Samuel Spade. I came to care about him and his activities less than before. I More...

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Aug 14, 2011

Suzan rated it:

The prequel to Dashiell Hammett’s crime classic The Maltese Falcon provides noir lovers with detailed character studies that reveal how one of the world’s most iconic detectives became the hard-boiled, straight-shooting and canny operator we know and love from The Maltese Falcon. Gores creates, seemingly effortlessly, an enthralling and atmospheric recreation of San Francisco in the 1920s—where bootleg booze, broads, gold smugglers, waterfront thugs and grizzled cops vie for attention in a serie More...

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Sep 26, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

This book has some buzz about it. I am not sure how I feel about extensions of another author's work, is it poaching or brave and forward thinking? Partially reading this now because I am enjoying the city lately and wanted to read about its past, and I really love the genre. So far I would say that his writing is a shadow of Hammett's so this is vaguely unsatisfying. I vividly remember reading Hammett's Continental short stories which had an electricity about the prose and visuals. This is More...

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Aug 23, 2011

Ron added it

Joe Gores brought me right into the world of Sam Spade. This is supposed to be a prequel to Dashiell Hammett's great "The Maltese Falcon" and it could have been written by Hammett himself.

We meet Sam Spade just after WW I in Seattle, where he is about to quit the Continental detective agency and strike out on his own. He goes to San Francisco, hangs out a shingle, hires the great Effie Perine as a secretary and is off and running. As I was reading this book I was picturing Humphrey More...

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Mar 06, 2009

Stephen rated it:

An interesting prequel to the Maltese Falcon which is good with the flavor of Hammett and captures much of the mood of the early hard boiled genre but gets too caught up in tiny details trying to show how familiar the author is with Hammett's work.While the first two thirds of the book are page turning and enjoyable the ending seemed somewhat contrived as if the author had settled on a page limit before finishing the story and realized he had to wrap it all up right away.
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Jul 26, 2009

Dale rated it:

It would be easy enough to criticize this novel on a number of fronts: the forgettable and not very believable plots, the over-attention to minute details of San Francisco streets and places, the almost parodic use of the Hammett style. But these are inconsequential when held up against the sheer pleasure of reading a Sam Spade novel. Spade skirts the law and has no time for its representatives, but holds his own ethical code inviolate, even when doing so puts himself at risk. He is also a kind More...

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Apr 24, 2009

Margaret rated it:

Well, it took six hours, (I had a head cold) but I pounded through it the next day. It rocked.

The author is inarguably an expert on Hammett: his work, his life, his style, his quirks. Still, it's damn creepy how closely he hit natural tone and flow Hammett in this piece.

Amy Tan said that her mother told her she believed that grandma had visited Amy and told her the story of the Joy Luck Club...she laughed at the story...I wondered if the same thing had happened to Gores. More...

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Aug 05, 2011

Patrick rated it:

Fans of The Maltese Falcon and Bogie will love this engrossing new novel by veteran mystery novelist Joe Gores.

Spade & Archer is the prequel to Hammett's famous gumshoe, and you learn a lot about what makes Sam Spade tick.

The story begins some 20 years before The Maltese Falcon as Spade starts out on his own. We learn Miles Archer, his future partner, stole his girl while he fought in WW I.

And we follow Spade as he investigates gold heists, bank fraud and a murder connected to famed Chinese Nat More...

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Apr 16, 2010

Michael rated it:

For Dashiell Hammet fans, this was a satisfying read. The author did a good job of creating the period mood for this book set in San Francisco in the 1920's. It read like I was watching an old Humprey Bogart,Sam Spade movie complete with authentic dialogue and characters. The story covers the early years of Spade's P.I. carreer in starting his own agency and eventually bringing Miles Lord on as his Partner, leaving off just before the Maltese Falcon caper is about to begin. All that being said, More...

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Apr 13, 2010

Ryan rated it:

Good plot, but a little too playful in spots to feel authentically noir. The Spade character is a spot-on portrayal, and the novel is filled with colorful figures and embellishments of familiar ones. The Archer character, however, is a major disappointment. Despite the twin billing on the cover, Archer is almost as absent in this book as he is in The Maltese Falcon. I don't think that would have disappointed me as much if the book seemed to sell itself on introducing me to Spade and Archer's More...

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Aug 05, 2009

Dewey rated it:

I have not read "The Maltese Falcon", so I did not know what to expect. That said, I really enjoyed the novel. Sam Spade leaves Continental and opens his own PI office. He hires Effie Perine as his secretary and starts investigating cases. There is a villan who runs through 3 cases and eludes Spade. Why it is named "Spade & Archer", I have no idea. Archer is hardly in the novel and only used as a way to get his wife, Spade's lover, into the San Francisco area. The 1920 More...

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Sep 04, 2010

Brackman1066 rated it:

This is much better than the usual run of prequels or slapped-together "unfinished novels" based on notes, etc. Gores writes a clean and entertaining trio of mysteries. I like Hammett's Spade short stories slightly better than the Maltese Falcon (and prefer the Continental Op to Spade overall), and this was more in the spirit of those than the famous novel. Perhaps if you feel the opposite, you won't enjoy Spade and Archer as much. One quibble I share with other reviewers is the title- More...

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Jan 05, 2010

Debbie rated it:

This was a little weird reading so soon after The Devil's Garden since some of the scenes from Hammett's life that appeared in that book are interposed into the early fictional career of Sam Spade, a little deja vu.

Even my passing knowledge of the world of Hammett was rewarded in this look at the early life of Sam Spade. The author was quite clever in depicting small details from both Hammett's life and his other stories into this story of Spades decade long search for a master crimi More...

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Nov 28, 2009

Laurie rated it:

A great book for anyone who liked the Dashiell Hammett stories about Sam Spade or the movies made from them, like The Maltese Falcon. This is a prequel to The Maltese Falcon and gives you the background of how Spade and Archer came together and details about Spade's life before he became a detective.

Some of the same characters appear in this book, like Effie, Sam's secretary, and the cops he bangs heads with. I found it very well written and entertaining, and imagined the whole time More...

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Sep 15, 2011

David rated it:

Far better than what I was expecting although the book was recommended to me by someone who usually knows her stuff when it comes to crime fiction.

The book is written in three sections that cover cases that happen in the years 1921, 1925 and 1928. The cases are linked but also work as stand-alone short stories. Only the third story had elements that sometimes didn't ring true - a blepharoplasty?

In a nice little touch this Maltese Falcon prequel ends just as Spade is cal More...

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Jul 22, 2009

Jason rated it:

While I don't think it's nearly as good as The Maltese Falcon, Spade & Archer is a pretty good read. Gores does the hard-boil PI thing well, and it was fun follow Spade around as he interacted with characters that later show up in the Falcon. My only real gripe with the book is the time-line. In Spade & Archer, Sam finds Flitcraft and quits the Seattle detective agency in 1921. But when he tells the story in the Falcon, it was 1927 when he found Flitcraft and doesn't mention when he quit Seattle More...

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Feb 06, 2012

Steve rated it:

I didn’t have high hopes for “Spade and Archer,” even though it is published under the Black Lizard imprint, which rarely disappoints. A prequel to Dashiell Hammett’s classic “The Maltese Falcon”? Really? Who exactly is Joe Gores? And who gave him permission to use Hammett’s characters?

Actually, Hammett’s surviving daughter gave permission. Gores approached her in 1999 about doing a prequel, and she said no. Then in 2004, she approached him about a sequel. He said no, but restated his More...

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