The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell Hammett (1930)
“Everyone in this room is lying. The detective knows it. He doesn't care — until they kill his partner.”
Short Summary
San Francisco private detective Sam Spade is hired by the mysterious Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and his partner Miles Archer is killed the first night on the job. The case spirals into a hunt for a jewel-encrusted statuette — the Maltese Falcon — with Spade caught between a cast of elegant criminals, a murderous fat man, and his own moral code. At the end, the falcon is a fake and Spade hands the woman he loves to the police for his partner's murder.
Detailed Summary
Sam Spade, a hard-edged San Francisco private detective, is visited by Miss Wonderly — actually Brigid O'Shaughnessy — who hires him to shadow a man named Floyd Thursby. That night, both Thursby and Spade's partner Miles Archer are shot dead. The police suspect Spade of one or both murders; Spade su...