The Maltese Falcon (novel) The Maltese Falcon (novel) The Maltese Falcon is a 1930 detective novel by American writer Dashiell Hammett, originally serialized in the magazine "Black Mask" beginning with the September 1929 issue. The story is told entirely in external third-person narrative; there is no description whatever of any character's internal thoughts or feelings, only what they say and do, and how they look. The novel has been adapted several times for the cinema. The main character, Sam Spade (who also appeared later in some lesser-known short stories), was a departure from Hammett's nameless detective, The Continental Op. Spade combined several features of
The Falcon Takes Over Chandler novel "Farewell, My Lovely", with the Falcon substituted for Chandler's archetypal private eye Philip Marlowe and the setting of New York City replacing Marlowe's Los Angeles beat. The film was the second adaptation of a Marlowe story, after "Time to Kill", released earlier in the same year. That film, also, did not use Marlowe as the main character, changing the name to Michael Shayne. As it played in film theaters, "The Falcon Takes Over" was considered a "co-feature" or the second half of a double bill. Theodore Strauss in his review for "The New York Times", wrote, "For a