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The Maltese Falcon

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The Maltese Falcon

By: Dashiell Hammett
Narrated by: Robertson Dean
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About this listen

The definitive masterpiece of the hard-boiled detective genre, The Maltese Falcon first appeared in the pages of Black Mask magazine in 1929 and was almost immediately acknowledged as not only a great crime novel but an enduring masterpiece of American fiction.

Tough, cynical PI Sam Spade - a man who, as his creator explained, is "able to take care of himself in any situation, able to get the best of anybody he comes in contact with" - is hired by the story's irresistible femme fatale, Brigid O'Shaughnessy, to locate the client's sister by tailing her companion. Spade's partner, Miles Archer, takes on the assignment, and quickly both he and the man he was shadowing are murdered. As Spade pursues the mystery of his partner's death, he is drawn into a circle of colorful characters - all of them after a legendary statuette of a falcon fashioned long ago for King Charles of Spain.

Made of gold and encrusted with jewels, the falcon is worth a fortune. Missing for centuries, it resurfaced in Paris in 1911, covered in black enamel to disguise its value, and then disappeared again until it was traced to Constantinople - and now, it would seem, to Spade's own backyard.

©2018 Dashiell Hammett (P)2018 Blackstone Publishing Crime Fiction Romance Romantic Comedy Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Comedy Crime Mystery
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amazing work specifically coming in with the bias of having seen the movie adaptation and more so having read other source material for film adaptations this proved more valuable in that it gave insights onto to strengths and weakness of adaptation and the genre itself amongst other insight into genre tropes and other subtleties like insight into the writers subconscious intelligence and influences.

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If you don't know the story then absolutely listen to this version. Yes the accents of the narrator can sometimes be less than brilliant but he still manages to get the ethos of Sam Spade across.

A classic hard boiled detective story

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I looked forward to enjoying this and was not disappointed. My advice is to Wikipedia 1930 in USA, this will help set the tone.

Humphrey Bogart classic.

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One of the true greats of hard boiled Detective fiction wonderfully brought to life. Almost 100 years old and still putting many of its contemporaries to shame.

Fantastic

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I downloaded this after a recommendation, I had no idea at the time that it had been made into an Oscar nominated film(!) but it was clear early on why it was.

We don't see a lot of this kind of detective drama these days, but it is very alluring and this was an excellent book that I got through very quickly.

A classic.

Not my usual genre, but still a great read.

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