The Maltese Falcon

Summary:

Considered by many to be the prime example of hard-boiled detective fiction, the story follows a San Francisco based private eye named Sam Spade as he works a case shrouded in mystery, containing several players, and concerning a priceless artifiact that each caller is trying to obtain for themselves, offering him different payouts if he gives it to them.

Review:

I enjoyed The Maltese Falcon for the most part. I wasn’t too keen on the sheer amount of mysoginy and womanizing that Sam Spade is portrayed performing throughout the story, though it does represent the reality that women faced during the pre-suffrage movement time period.

I understand why it is considered the defacto story if you want to learn about the genre though. Spade is a thick skinned detective who doesn’t take any crap from anyone, even when his life is clearly on the line. He pushes forward in his investigation boldly and gets results, eventually solving the convoluted crime, when it seemed impossible for him to do so.

From a writing style perspective, I am not the biggest fan of an author feeling like they need to describe every single movment or facial expression a character makes. There definitely needs to be some of that feedback so the reader can paint the right picture, but too much can slow the story down and make it feel burdensome - which I felt this story suffered from a bit.

Also, the dialogue was often repetitive and felt forced, rather than real enough to be believable. This wasn’t always the case, but several times throughout the story, I found myself noting that a character had used the exact line a few sentences before and/or repeating the spirit of their line multiple times.

While I think the story was good overall, I wouldn’t say it’s one of my favorite crime stories I’ve ever read. I am glad that I did so, as it’s sort of a bucket list book for any fan of the genre, but I doubt I’ll read it again in the future.

Overall, I’d say this is a solid 4 stars, as it’s not a bad read, but the aforementioned issues (in my opinion) knock it down a bit.