The classic telling of Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon

I can’t say I agree that Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon is a finely written novel, but it is a good story, and for once, the famous movie actually seems to follow the source material pretty closely. Granted, I haven’t seen the film in years, but reading the book now felt very familiar.

The book follows Sam Spade, a private investigator who falls into a big “who done it” plot. He is approached by Miss Wonderly (aka Brigid O’Shaughnessy) to trail someone, and Sam sends his partner Miles to do the job. Miles and his target both end up dead in short order, and trouble seems to follow Brigid wherever she goes. As it turns out, there are many people hunting for her, and more specifically, a rare and extremely valuable statue in her possession, the maltese falcon. Other characters come in, others die along the way, but in the end, Sam puts his sleuthing skills to work and gets to the bottom of the murders and the money.

Having seen the movie before, I knew where it was all heading, but even so, it was an enjoyable read. The novel is written in a very straight-forward manner with not a lot of detail, and gets to feel like a “he said this and she replied this” sort of book, but the dialogue is good, especially at the end. A short book too, you can speed through it in a day.