Recommended reading - The Maltese Falcon

 

The Maltese Falcon

by Dashiell Hammett.

Introduction by Richard Russo.

First published 1930.
Published by Vintage Crime / Black Lizard.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0679722645
ISBN-13: 978-0679722649

Description:
“Hammett … wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before.” – Raymond Chandler.
Detective Sam Spade is a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. When his partner is killed during a stakeout, he is drawn into the hunt for a fantastic treasure with a dubious provenance – a golden bird encrusted with jewels. Also on the trail are a perfumed grifter named Joel Cairo, an oversized adventurer named Gutman, and Spade’s new client 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 generations of readers.
“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.