All copies of this title, including those transferred to portable devices and other media, must be deleted/destroyed at the end of the lending period.
Description
The Maltese Falcon first appeared in the pages of Black Mask magazine in 1929. Almost immediately it was acknowledged as not only a great crime novel but an enduring masterpiece of American fiction. Sam Spade, its protagonist, is the archetypal tough, cynical P.I., "able," as his creator explained, "to take care of himself in any situation, able to get the best of anybody he comes in contact with, whether criminal, innocentby-stander or client." And what a client!—the irresistible and treacherous femme fatale Brigid O'Shaughnessy.
Believing the book's vividly drawn characters and memorable dialogue cry out for theatrical treatment, Blackstone Audio commissioned this faithful dramatization by the award-winning Hollywood Theater of the Ear, in which a brilliant cast brings to life all the excitement and suspense of Hammett's original in the playhouse of the mind.
They're all here--Sam Spade, the streetwise detective; the gorgeous but dangerous dame; the squirrelly guy; and the fat man--all chasing an elusive statue of a mythical bird across the most American of literary landscapes, fog-bound San Francisco in the 1920s. Few novels have been more "noir"--or more influential. With fine talents like Michael Madsen, Sandra Oh, and Edward Herrmann, Blackstone Audio and the Hollywood Theater of the Ear have created a taut, well-paced audio production, drawn directly from the novel, first serialized in BLACK MASK MAGAZINE in 1929. All of Hammett's signature descriptions and stylish dialogue are at the forefront. Sexy, darkly comic, and broodingly moral, THE MALTESE FALCON is like a jolt of bourbon--it wakes you up and keeps you listening. B.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
New York Times...
Hammett's prose [is] clean and entirely unique. His characters [are] as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction.
About the Author
Samuel Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse). In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on film, he is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time and was called, in his obituary in the New York Times, “the dean of the...'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction.”
