Book Circle Reads 36Rating: 3.5* of five, because I love the movie more The Publisher Says: Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammett's archetypally tough San Francisco detective, is more noir than L.A. Confidential and more vulnerable than Raymond Chandler's Marlowe. In The Maltese Falcon, the best known of Hammett's Sam Spade novels (including The Dain Curse and The Glass Key), 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.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.Spade is bigger (and blonder) in the book than in the movie, 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 Chinatown or wonder where Robert B. Parker's Spenser gets his comebacks, read the master. --Barbara SchlieperMy Review: There's nothing second-best about this book, no indeed not. It's a fine, solid book, one with a lot of good story packed into some very well-chosen words.But the film, well now, sometimes perfection comes in unexpected places. Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet! What a pair of second-raters! And how perfectly they meshed, and then add Peter Lorre, another second-rater, and the Holy Trinity couldn't have done better work with the tale being told here. It was a super retelling of the basic story.Wisecracks that, on the page, made me smile and even giggle, came out of Bogart's mouth, and Lorre's, and even Greenstreet's, at a wonderful pace and were there and gone...just like a wisecrack should be. Not to put down the book by any means! It's a fun read, and it's a well-made novel, and it's a classic noir for a reason.But for me, only for me, I want the film to be my memory of this story.Rating: 4* of fiveThe Publisher Says: "My name is David Brandstetter. I'm a claims investigator for the Medallion Life Insurance Company." He handed her a card. She didn't glance at it. "I'm looking for Peter Oats," he said."He's not here. I wish he were. Maybe you can help me. The police don't seem to care."She was April Stannard. Her lover, Peter's father, had died. April believed he'd been murdered.Dave Brandstetter's investigation takes him through the rare-book world, to backstage at a community theatre, to the home of a world-famous television performer. Along the way, Dave soon comes to agree with April.My Review: Small-town California has a lot of atmosphere, according to Hansen; I don't remember it that way, but I was young and miserable, so I'll go with the man who found there something that led to this description of an old mill made into a theater:The waterwheel was twice a man’s height, wider than a man’s two stretched arms. The timbers, braced and bolted with rusty iron were heavy, hand-hewn, swollen with a century of wet. Moss bearded the paddles, which dripped as they rose. The sounds were good. Wooden stutter like children running down a hall at the end of school. Grudging axle thud like the heartbeat of a strong old man.Beautiful.It's with this book, second in the series, that Hansen's chops come fully into play. He's here to wow you, and he's got the story to keep you sitting right there flipping pages. April, the bereaved, is Rita Hayworth in my mind; Oates, the dead guy, looks like John Garfield; Peter, the son and heir, is Cabaret-era Michael York; and so on and so on. (Eve, Oates' ex-wife, is Barbara Stanwyck.) I do this a lot, cast the perfect movie cast as I read along. But this time it felt as if it was all done for me. Oates' murderer, when revealed, was a surprise to me even though this was a re-read. And the actor I'd put in the role was perfect...no testament to my skills, just an example of how beautifully Hansen draws his characters.Dave's got a man, too...how amazing for the 1970s! I so wish this had been a TV series. Magnum PI only gay! *sigh* What might have been.... This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Look out folks…here comes GREATNESS…“When you’re slapped, you’ll take it and like it” GIFSoup Sam Spade (played by the legendary Humphrey Bogart) bitch-slapping the manhood out of Joel Cairo (played by Peter Lorre)….and telling him to shut up and take it!! Do I really need to continue the review after that? That is perfection. However, for those tough sells I will continue with my “Why is this book Awesome” thesis. First, this story IS NOIR. Now there are a lot of wonderful noirs out there, many of them classics, but this story is THE noir. It is the noirest (aka that which has reached the pinnacle of noirism). Second, you have a smart, interesting mystery-based plot that is paced perfectly. This book doesn’t just flow…it saunters, it glides, it swaggers. Third, you have a phenomenal cast of odd and engaging characters without a good guy in sight. Our hero by default, Sam Spade, is as gray as the economic skies over America and moves through the story as cool and slick as a Teflon cat. Oh…the FUNtastic spectacle that is this book is something to behold. HOWEVER….all of the above are not even necessary for making this a classic 5 star read. This book is all about the WRITING, especially the dialogue. This novel is stuffed so full of breezy, quotable lines that I’m surprised Hammett was ever able to come up with another one. In fact, rather then mess this review up any further, I am going to let the dialogue speak for itself….along with some images from the movie version that do not necessarily coincide with the quotes. ENJOY… “Say, what's on your mind beside your hat.” --Sam Spade ***You will quote that line at some time in the future...you know you will.*** “You're a good man, sister.” Sam Spade ***CoolDAR just starting beeping*** “Listen, Dundy, it's been a long time since I burst into tears because a policeman didn't like me.” Sam Spade ***The CoolDAR just went to 11*** Joel Cairo: “You always have a very smooth explanation.” Sam Spade “What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?” ***oh shit, I just had a coolgasm....This is tied with “Ugly as Incest” (from The Heroes) as the greatest line of the week. Just classic.*** “People lose teeth talking like that. If you want to hang around, you'll be polite.” Sam Spade ***And the cool just won't let up...Brilliant, sir….just brilliant*** “By Gad, sir, you are a character. There's never any telling what you'll say or do next, except that it's bound to be something astonishing.” Kasper Gutman ***By Gad?….By Gad?….Oh that one is going right into the repertoire as it is too slicktastic.*** "Brigid O'Shaughnessy: “I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know.” Sam Spade “You know, that's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere.” ***It's official...Sam Spade makes me feel like a dorkadouche.*** Brigid O'Shaughnessy: “Help me.” Sam Spade: “You won't need much of anybody's help. You're good. Chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice when you say things like 'Be generous, Mr. Spade.'”Brigid O'Shaughnessy: “I deserve that. But the lie was in the way I said it, not at all in what I said. It's my own fault if you can't believe me now.” Sam Spade: “Ah, now you are dangerous." ***'Ah, now you are dangerous'...Oh…that is so, so good *** Sam Spade: “All we've got is that maybe you love me and maybe I love you.” Brigid O'Shaughnessy: “You know whether you love me or not.” Sam Spade: “Maybe I do. I'll have some rotten nights after I've sent you over, but that'll pass. I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you." ***Screeeeech…..back up and re-read that. Yes, that is exactly what he is saying…this guy is like a walking Urban Legend of the ultimate badass.*** FADE TO BLACK HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!
What do You think about The Maltese Falcon (2005)?
Hmmmm. Well, I give it credit for what it was. The twists and the turns were fun to run behind and you never did know what was coming next. So it was, at the least, enjoyable. Unfortunately, there is the rest of what the book is. Spade, for example, is an asshole. There is no part of him that is anything but. He sleeps with married women, whores himself around, and in general acts like a prick to everyone he comes in contact with, even a detective friend of his. It seems silly that he would have any of the connections he does since he is such an unrelenting bastard. Perhaps if he was paying off his sources and allies it would make more sense; as it stands, I suppose I'm to believe all these women swoon for him and all these men line up to die for him because he's handsome and smokes a lot.Spade isn't the only poor character though. Pretty much the entire cast are caricatures, but I'll give it to Hammett for putting in quirks to make them more real. Wilmer wants to be a tough guy and has a crush on the bosses daughter, Cairo wants the treasure but also wants Wilmer, Gutman wants the treasure and is willing to -- if painfully -- sacrifice a boy like a son to him. These are all very good and I'm happy to see them included because it really does make the characters out to be more than just cutouts. My problem, I suppose, is with their actions and how the story plays out.The characters are needlessly protective and secretive. Everyone speaks in innuendo or sparsely and it's as if the whole world regards everyone else with shifty eyes. I thought it was a bit silly and probably held up only for secrets sake and to keep the surprises surprising. But, that said, the book took so many sharp right turns I don't think I could have predicted where it was going if I had had evidence. An artifact appearing amidst murders and one man being framed while another is being harassed -- it's all just a little too silly.This is also the first detective novel I've ever read, and from what I understand a rather famous one, so perhaps that is only why I am surprised by the way things played out. Maybe this is no less silly than any other detective novel and I'm completely wrong. If that is the case, then I would say it's probably very good, even if the main character is an unlikeable wanker.
—Nicholas Armstrong
Welcome to Spade and Archer detective agency. One day a gorgeous woman came in asking to help tracking her sister who ran away with a bad guy. The down payment was good, so the detectives took the case, no questions asked. As the direct result one of the detectives - Sam Spade - got to experience all of the traditional noir fun while readers follow ever-twisting plot. I said it countless times before and I will say it again: Sam Spade is the grandfather of all PIs in all noir, in particular all Californian PIs - Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe included. Dashiell Hammett created the genre and most of its tropes. Speaking about them - this was my reread of the book and this time I was trying to count them as they appear. For those doubting Hammett's paternity of noir I can say the following. I found them all in here. I might miss something, but every single major trope is present. Does it show its age? Yes, a little. Is it still fun to read? You bet it is. In fact this book - along with Red Harvest by the same author - is responsible for my love of noir, just like in several generations of readers before me. It is most probably a safe bet to say that Sam Spade made Philip Marlowe possible. While Hammett's prose is not as stylish as Chandler's - nobody's prose is - it is still quite good and does not feel antique. My rating is 4 stars, exactly the same as it was during my first read; recommended to any noir fan, just for historical value if nothing else.
—Evgeny
Sam Spade is a street-smart protagonist with a nose for solving crimes and an eye for the ladies, but nothing touches his heart of stone. Not even the quest for a black statue of a falcon that is a priceless treasure, and the beautiful damsel in distress it brings into his life.What starts as a simple surveillance job becomes a mystery that leads to some dead bodies, that the police are eager to pin on Spade. Spade isn't the man to be played, and he shows his ruthless nature, and keen intelligence hiding under a deceptive facade.I listened to this on audio, narrated by William Dufris. He does an excellent job and really seems to enjoy himself in the process. Unlike some narrators, he manages a very good female voice that doesn't remind me of a man in drag. He also makes each character sound distinctive, and the nature of those characters oozes out to the listener.I personally found Spade to be a jerk. But he's not all bad. He is adept that saying what a woman wants to hear, and with casual endearments delivered in a silver tongue, but meaning none of it, but he can also be quite mean to the women in his life. I wouldn't exactly call him a thug, but he has no problem using his physicality as an asset when it's necessary. The fact that he's a good detective is very apparent. And strangely enough, deep down there is a strange sense of honor that won't allow him to look the other way, even when he longs to. He also seems to be motivated by a need for no one to think they can take advantage of him. He's even willing to allow people to think the worst of him so long as he can keep his tough guy reputation. You get the impression that San Francisco is his city, and he knows how to maneuver his way through its deep waters. He is a true detective in the sense that nothing gets past him, and while he sometimes struggles to control his emotions, he never allows them to compromise his intellect. Bridget O'Shaugnessey is one of those heroines who seems helpless and sweet, but it's also apparent she is more than capable of taking care of herself, like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. The fact that she's deeply involved in this falcon affair is a big sign that she's no Pollyanna. While part of you really wants to like her and fall into her honeytrap, the other part knows that she's not exactly what she seems. I didn't blame Spade for being wary of her and not believing any word she says.Gutman and Cairo are conveyed in such a way that it's impossible to think of them as caricatures. Their descriptions are so distinctive, almost misleading. However, as I kept reading, I realized that their menace lurks under the surface. Wilbur is truly a scary character, a young psychopath capable of extreme violence and kept on a very short leash. While Wilbur is like a trigger, I'd rather know who my enemy is instead of being faced with an amiable man who is all smiles while he's plotting my demise, like Gutman. Or squishy dandy who seems like he'd jump if you shooed a fly.I was a bit surprised at the raw content in this novel. Plenty of swearing, although not the big swear words that slip so casually off the tongue nowadays in media. While the sexual elements are alluded to, there is no question that something is going on between the sheets, and that Spade has a certain reputation. Hammett's writing is terse and tends to be heavy on dialogue, using it as a tool to reveal crucial information about its character. His imagery is clear and bold. While some of his adjectives are a bit clunky, I really enjoyed the auditory stimulus of his descriptors. He conveys Spade as a very physical man, but that is merely a smokescreen for his keen intelligence, and one of his best assets, the ability to cause his enemies to underestimate him.I think that there is a lot to learn about writing detective fiction from this book. Hammett makes it look easy, but it's not. Less is more is a lot harder than it seems, and my favorite authors are those who get it right. I recommend listening to this. It's very easy on the ears.
— Danielle The Book Huntress (Self-Proclaimed Book Ninja)
