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 (character) film. (The surname was spelled "Lawrence" in subsequent films.) Thus "The Falcon" became an alias, or nickname (à la "The Saint"). In later outings, in various media, the character had a variety of "real names," while still being known as The Falcon. Neither in films nor on radio was the nickname ever explained. Sanders appeared in the first three Falcon films, which followed the "Saint" pattern so closely that author Charteris sued RKO for plagiarism (Charteris pokes fun at The Falcon in his 1943 novel "The Saint Steps In", with a character making a metafictional reference to the Falcon being