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A wonderfully dark, pitch-perfect noir prequel to "The Maltese Falcon," featuring Dashiell Hammett s beloved detective, Sam Spade. It s 1921 seven years before Sam Spade will solve the famous case of the Maltese Falcon. He s just set up his own agency in San Francisco and he gets off to a quick start, working cases (he doesn t do domestic) and hiring a bright young secretary named Effie Perrine. When he s hired by a prominent San Francisco banker to find his missing son, Spade gets the break he s been looking for. He spends the next few years dealing with booze runners, waterfront thugs, banking swindlers, gold smugglers, and bumbling cops. He brings in Miles Archer as a partner to help bolster the agency, though it was Archer who stole his girl while he was fighting in World War I. All along, Spade will tangle with an enigmatic villain who holds a long-standing grudge against Spade. And, of course, he ll fall in love though it won t turn out for the best. It never does with dames."
This book was so fun to read! I haven't read a hard-boiled detective story in years and this really had all the snappy dialogue and twisting plot points I like about that genre. Makes me want to reread The Maltese Falcon.
Spade & Archer: The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's the Maltese Falcon | 
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