My top ten reasons why this Dashiell Hammett is one of the greatest crime novels ever written:

1. The Voice – Tough, Crisp hardboiled – the story isn’t told in first-person but certainly has the feel of first-person since we are so close to Sam Spade it’s as if we’re peering over the detective’s shoulder from first to last page.

2. The City – The buildings and streets in San Francisco have such a tangible presence, even today, after nearly 100 years, they still give Maltese Falcon tours.

3. Femme Fatale – Brigid O’Shaughnessy is the femme fatale. Her looks, her way of speaking, her cunning, her charms, her allurement– legions of writers of detective fiction have changed her name, her home town, color of her hair and eyes, but all you have to do is scratch the surface and there she is.

4. Outside the Law – Nobody likes a cog in the legal wheel or a grey flannel flunkey following orders. Sam Spade is anything but – an outsider to the police, district attorney and even his clients, Sammy is his own man, cracking the case in his own way, in his own time and even willing to get socked in the jaw by a police lieutenant or pulled in by a high ranking official to make it happen.

5. Tone – Sharp and crisp. If you read (and look) carefully, an entire world is disclosed, as for example: “Spade emptied the unconscious man’s pockets one by one, working methodically, moving the lax body when necessary, making a pile of the pockets’ contents on the desk. When the last pocket had been turned out he returned to his own chair, rolled and lighted a cigarette, and began to examine his spoils. He examined them with grave unhurried thoroughness.”

6. Violence – Nothing juices the action in a detective fiction more than cold bloody murder. An entire string of murders are featured here, all happening at the right time to accelerate tempo. Also, there’s a good amount of roughhouse, with the least likely man in the novel, Joel Cairo, getting beat up every time he turns around. Serves him right for thinking himself so refined and above it all.

7. The Color of Character – Dashiell Hammett set the gold standard here for writers of detective fiction. “The fat man was flabbily fat with bulbous pink cheeks and lips and chins and neck, with a great soft egg of a belly that was all his torso, and pendant cones for arms and legs. As he advanced to meet Spade all his bulbs rose and shook and fell separately with such step, in the manner of clustered soap-bubbles not yet released from the pipe through which they had been blown. His eyes, made small by fat puffs around them, where dark and sleek. Dark ringlets thinly covered his broad scalp. He wore a back cutaway coat, black vest, black satin Ascot tie holding a pinkish pearl, striped grey worsted trousers, and patent-leather shoes. His voice was a throaty purr.”

8. The Moral Code – As one character finds out the hard way, Sam Spade is a man of the high, uncompromising character. You will have to read the novel to find out just how high and just how uncompromising.

9. The Whole is Greater than the Parts – The Maltese Falcon has that special something that separates it from other crime fiction, even crime fiction of the first order. What is it? Hard to put your finger on it, but as millions of readers have discovered every time they pick it up, this is one doozy of a classic.

10, The Dingus – Ah, yes, the object of obsessive desire, the bird with all those long-lost jewels. Has there ever been a famous actor more closely connected with a famous object? And, yes, in many ways, the much sought after black bird adds a unique aesthetic dimension to this tale of noir.
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