Spade & Archer
The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon
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3.8 • 18 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A wonderfully dark, pitch-perfect noir prequel to The Maltese Falcon, featuring Dashiell Hammett’s beloved detective, Sam Spade.
It’s 1921—seven years before Sam Spade will solve the famous case of the Maltese Falcon. He’s just set up his own agency in San Francisco and he gets off to a quick start, working cases (he doesn’t do domestic) and hiring a bright young secretary named Effie Perrine. When he’s hired by a prominent San Francisco banker to find his missing son, Spade gets the break he’s been looking for. He spends the next few years dealing with booze runners, waterfront thugs, banking swindlers, gold smugglers, and bumbling cops. He brings in Miles Archer as a partner to help bolster the agency, though it was Archer who stole his girl while he was fighting in World War I. All along, Spade will tangle with an enigmatic villain who holds a long-standing grudge against Spade. And, of course, he’ll fall in love—though it won’t turn out for the best. It never does with dames.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Edgar-winner Gores has not only pulled off the Herculean task of writing a prequel to The Maltese Falcon but also created a rip-roaring yarn of his own that will please even the crustiest of Hammett devotees. In 1921, Samuel Spade leaves the Continental Detective Agency and opens up his own office. One of his first cases, which the local cops have bungled, involves the robbery of $125,00 worth of gold coins from the San Anselmo, a passenger ship. Gores cuts forward twice, to 1925 and 1928, along the way setting the iconic Spade off on various adventures throughout the Bay Area. The author, who does a brilliant job of bringing Prohibition-era San Francisco to life with street-level detail and a native's perspective, also captures Hammett's spare style and tone perfectly. The only thing missing is a real femme fatale, but Gores, himself a former PI, gives us a number of young beauties to keep Spade busy until Miss Wonderly finally appears at his door. 5-city author tour.
Customer Reviews
Must for Hammett Fans
It's hard to "prequel" a beloved classic, but this one does most everything right. My only complaint is that it is a bit sluggish now and then and Sam Spade is a tad to chatty in moving the story along. Third person narrator like the original, though. Great ending and probably best of all, the author really new San Francisco and the 1920s and used them to great effect.
Formatting messed up
Weird line breaks. Hyphenation issues. Indentation snafus. Missing text. Technical issues which got in the way of reading the story. Enough to turn me off iBooks.