Maltese Falcon Society Don Herron and private investigator Jayson Wechter. The society's first meeting was held at John's Grill, a restaurant where Dashiell Hammett ate and which he featured in "The Maltese Falcon". The speakers at that first meeting were David Fechheimer, a Hammett researcher and private investigator, and E. Hoffmann Price, a pulp fiction author. The society opened chapters in New York and Japan. By 1982, the society had 110 members in San Francisco, 55 in Japan, and 50 in New York. As its official toast, the society adopted the one used by Sam Spade in Chapter 2 of "The Maltese Falcon":
The Way Some People Die alarming rate, a handsome part-time actor found dead in his apartment, a newlywed husband on the lam, a boat piled on the rocks, fast-talking women, everybody with a handout or hidden agenda. This book introduces the second of two cities Ross invented and was to use commonly in his work, Pacific Point, located south of Los Angeles. Anthony Boucher described it as: "The best novel in the tough tradition I've read since "Farewell, My Lovely" and possibly since "The Maltese Falcon"." Dick Lochte wrote: "I'm not sure why I prefer "The Way Some People Die" to" The Moving Target'", the