The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon” is a gritty, hard-boiled detective novel that grabs you from the first page. Sam Spade, the cynical private eye, gets tangled in a web of lies and murder while hunting for a priceless statuette. I couldn’t put it down, staying up late to unravel the mystery. Hammett’s terse prose and vivid characters bring 1920s San Francisco to life. It’s no wonder this book defined the noir genre and still captivates readers today.