The Maltese Falcon

First published in 1930, this detective novel follows Sam Spade in San Francisco after his partner is shot while tailing a man for the client Brigid O'Shaughnessy. Spade is pulled into a hunt for a jeweled statuette, the Maltese falcon, among Brigid, the fat collector Gutman, the gunman Wilmer, and the elegant Joel Cairo. Police pressure, double crosses, and the question of who killed whom structure the plot. The book is a hard-boiled crime novel of loyalty and sale, not a puzzle of country-house detection.

Bound in red buckram cover blocked with a black image. Colour illustrated black slipcase.