The Maltese Falcon By: Dashiell Hammett

Well I finished reading the Maltese Falcon; it was certainly interesting, sometimes boring and a bit different than anything I’ve read so far. Sometimes it was confusing, not sure if it was the writing or the slang that was used that is out of date and had to go thru my old movie filter to decipher it. Sam Spade was definitely a womanizer. He had three women on him the entire book and was able to handle each the way they needed to be handled. He wasn’t all together attractive sounding being described as basically a “V” from the shape of his head to his eyebrows, but that worked for him. He was incredibly smart and had things figured out long before the writer gave you enough to figure it out yourself.

*SPOILER*

I like that the female ultimately ended up being the person that shot his partner. I say female because she ended up having three names and if you read the book you’ll know who I am talking about. What made me like it even more is that even though he hated his partner and might love her he still turned her in. I enjoyed the fact that he kept the police running and didn’t really help them since they seemed to want to frame him for being better at the job then they were.

I guess out of five stars I would give it three. It wasn’t gripping and like I said some bits were convoluted but it was something that was worth reading just to see what was “in” back in the 30s.