The Maltese Falcon

A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shop-worn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grifter named Joel Cairo, a fat man named Gutman, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett’s coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted three generations of readers.

‘Dashiell Hammett. . . is a master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer.’ –The Boston Globe

’The Maltese Falcon is not only probably the best detective story we have ever read, it is an exceedingly well written novel.’–The Times Literary Supplement (London)

‘Hammett’s prose [is] clean and entirely unique. His characters [are] as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction.’–The New York Times <br