Sam Spade Sam Spade Sam Spade is a fictional private detective and the protagonist of Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel, "The Maltese Falcon". Spade also appeared in four lesser-known short stories by Hammett. "The Maltese Falcon", first published as a serial in the pulp magazine "Black Mask", is the only full-length novel in which Spade appears. The character, however, is widely cited as a crystallizing figure in the development of hard-boiled private detective fiction—Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, for instance, was strongly influenced by Spade. Spade was a departure from Hammett's nameless and less-than-glamorous detective, The Continental Op. Spade combined several features of previous
The Maltese Falcon (1931 film) and sends himself the ticket in the mail. Called in to see the District Attorney (Morgan Wallace) because of what Iva's been telling the police, Spade stonewalls them, and is given 24 hours to wrap up the case and bring in the real killers. Wonderly lures Spade into his apartment, where Cairo and Gutman are waiting for him with guns. Knowing that Spade has the falcon, Gutman gives him ten $1,000 bills in an envelope, but Spade insists there also has to be a "fall guy" to give the police to account for the murders (Archer, Thursby and Jacoby), and