“I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, it’s possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon.”

If Sam Spade wrote reviews...

I was all set to motor back to my flop and squirt out a few lines while everything was still fresh in my melon. But just then I heard a yammering coming from the rumble seat that was making my ears blister. I leaned back to where Brigid O'Shaughnessy had planted herself and shoved my roscoe in her button.

“Listen sister,” I said, “Shut your yap!”

I tell ya’ you can’t trust a dame. All I asked was for her to keep her mitts outta’ my marbles long enough for me to hurry home and hash out a few words for the dailies, but the broad just couldn’t stop flapping her jaws...

...okay, maybe Sam Spade wouldn’t (shouldn’t?) write reviews.

I enjoy reading Dashiel Hammett, partly because of Humphrey Bogart but also because Hammett wrote his protagonist with machismo instead of misogyny. Yes Sam Spade is a chauvinist, but he’s also a pretty good egg.