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 Maltese Falcon (novel) Spade slips out to search her apartment. Effie believes O'Shaughnessy "is all right" and Spade should help her. Effie agrees to hide her at her own home, but O'Shaughnessy disappears again. When Spade meets Gutman in his hotel room, neither of them will tell what he knows. Spade implies he is looking out for himself, not O'Shaughnessy. Red herrings abound. The police suspect Spade in the shootings because he was bedding Archer's wife Iva. The District Attorney ties the shootings to Dixie Monahan, a Chicago gambler who had employed Thursby as a bodyguard in the Far East. At a second