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The Maltese Falcon (BBC Radio Crimes)

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About this listen

 It’s San Francisco, 1928, and Sam Spade is a wisecracking, womanising Private Investigator. Missing husbands and unfaithful wives are his usual stock-in-trade, but when the beautifully distressed Miss Wonderley calls he gets involved in a dangerous caper most people would run a mile from. Miss Wonderley asks Sam’s partner, Miles Archer, to shadow Floyd Thursby, whom she maintains has kidnapped her sister. But then Archer is shot dead, and Miss Wonderley’s story turns out to be a lie – just like her name, which is actually Brigid O’Shaughnessy. And Miss O’Shaughnessy keeps on lying. But one thing’s for sure: she does know about the Maltese Falcon, an ancient statuette which has attracted more than one interested party. With a bunch of heavies at his elbow and the police on his tail, Sam needs to think fast if he’s to outlive the person who killed his partner...©2009 BBC Audiobooks Ltd; (P)2009 BBC Audiobooks Ltd Entertainment & Performing Arts Modern Detectives Mystery Police Procedural Fiction Marriage Detective Adaptation

Critic reviews

in this terrific adaptation of Hammett's gangsters-and-molls classic, Tom Wilkinson as the macho, cynical, ruthless private eye Sam Spade is better than Humphrey Bogart (Sue Arnold)
All stars
Most relevant
Fantastic performances from all the cast very atmospheric, wilkinson, Lapotaire and Vaughan particularly good outstanding

Brilliant

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This adaptation is a brilliant production - authentic and genuine to the classic film, but played ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek to give it a fun twist.
The plot around the actual statuette is pure hokum, but the cast of characters involved keep the storyline and the action moving at a great pace.

Great fun!

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A classic pulp fiction private eye novel based in San-Francisco in the first half of the twentieth century. The cast did a good job creating the ambiance of the era and they conjured up the feeling you get when watching a Humphrey Bogart movie. It was quite short ( an edited version maybe, or perhaps just a short book) and characters were not as well fleshed out as in a Raymond Chandler novel, but nevertheless it was an enjoyable book and I am pleased to have listened to it.

Classic Pulp Fiction

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