The Maltese Falcon is a mystery novel classic- a 1929 knot on the detective fiction string that extends from Wilkie Collins through to Jo Nesbo and Ian Rankin. It features all the things we’ve come to expect from the ‘hard-boiled’ sub-genre: a hard-drinking loner detective, a handful of quirky criminal thugs, some pushy cops, a beautiful but possibly duplicitous femme fatale. Sam Spade is that detective, and he is trying to solve a mystery that builds around him with minimal clues but increasingly plentiful bodies.
There’s not much more to say about the plot without spoilers, and frankly the plot is almost the least interesting part of Hammett’s novel. This is a noir classic, lots of style and oh so many characters that we now see as stereotypes. Unsurprisingly given the time that it was written in (published 90 years ago this year!), the gender stereotypes rubbed me the wrong way- there’s the pining ex-lover, the dangerous femme fatale and the loyal (but less intuitive) good girl. I’m guessing that at the time Hammett was writing these stereotypes felt fresh, but reading in 2019 they do not.
I was really looking forward to reading this book, and I think those expectations may have been set too high. It wasn’t bad- it moved quickly, the characters were interesting- but it wasn’t really great either. Meh.
CBR11Bingo- Classics