Maltese Falcon Society winning author receives a certificate of merit and a falcon sculpture crafted in wood. Maltese Falcon Society The Maltese Falcon Society is an organization for admirers of Dashiell Hammett, his novel "The Maltese Falcon," and hardboiled mystery books and writers in general. Founded in San Francisco in 1981, the organization is no longer active in the United States; however, a chapter in Japan has been active continuously since 1982. The Japanese branch of the society presents the Falcon Award, Japan's highest honor in the mystery field, to honor the best hardboiled mystery novel published in Japan. The Maltese Falcon Society
The Maltese Falcon (novel) the story's protagonist), Hammett asserted that "Spade has no original. He is a dream man in the sense that he is what most of the private detectives I worked with would like to have been, and, in their cockier moments, thought they approached." Hammett reportedly drew upon his years as a detective in creating many of the other characters for "The Maltese Falcon", which reworks elements from two of his stories published in "Black Mask" magazine in 1925, "The Whosis Kid" and "The Gutting of Couffignal". The novel was serialized in five parts in "Black Mask" in 1929 and 1930