The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade and his partner Miles are private detectives in San Francisco. When the mysterious Miss Wonderly walks into their office begging them to trail a man who has run off with her sister, Sam finds himself embroiled in a complex web of violence, greed, and deceit, all revolving around a mysterious artifact—the titular Maltese Falcon. The Maltese Falcon is a jewel in the crown of the “hardboiled” crime genre, and one of its best-known works. Hammett writes a tight and lean story in which no character, not even the hero or the police, can be said to be “good.” It was first serialized in Bl