Spade & Archer

A prequel to Hammett's seminal hard boiled detective novel, the book details several cases over a number of years, held together as you might expect by a sinister thread. The plot is more convoluted than Hammett ever dreamed of, but the narrative and dialogue should satisfy most fans. The real fun for me was watching Spade first meeting characters we know from The Maltese Falcon, and watching him grow and change into himself. I thought it was a first rate read, and a special treat for any fans of the original.

Full disclosure: 1. I’m a Dashiell Hammett fan. 2. I’m a Joe Gores fan. 3. I live in Marin County and worked in San Francisco for 30 years. Bearing all of these predispositions in mind, it would be pretty remarkable if I was anything but enthusiastic about Gores’ Spade & Archer; the Prequel to Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. I loved it. Gores writes like a reincarnated Hammett. He’s had practice, having penned the novel Hammett 35 years ago. A good, convoluted plot involving many of the characters we meet in The Maltese Falcon – Effie Perine, Miles and Iva Archer, Dundy and Polhaus for a start – presents a very plausible backstory for Sam Spade in the years 1921-1928.

For a Bay Area resident, what makes this book show more even more delicious is the local color, the glimpse of San Francisco and environs as they were nearly a century ago. Nothing seemed out of place or time to me. Spade & Archer wraps you in a foggy cocoon and transports you to San Francisco in the Twenties. I wanted to stay so much that I’ve put The Maltese Falcon and Hammett in my “to be read” pile. show less

This book required a lot more suspension of disbelief than I usually can muster. It's not that the general events were so improbable, it's the omniscience of Sam Spade that got my eyes to rolling. Once I accepted that it would be "that type" of book, the story became really very enjoyable.

In this prequel to The Maltese Falcon, Joe Gores does an excellent job creating a believable history of private detectives Samuel Spade and Miles Archer. Mr. Gores captures Dashiell Hammett's voice perfectly and, in some respects, even does a better job with Spade and company.

There are three parts to this book, each focusing on a case that has a common thread, although the reader doesn't know the full extent until the end of the book. Although the book is called Spade and Archer, the focus is squarely on Spade, and shows how the two eventually became partners, leading the reader right up to the Maltese Falcon.

Mr. Gores does an superb job plotting the book, creating a much tighter story that spans several years than Hammett did in the show more days that the Maltese Falcon took place.

I especially liked the homage to Hammett's other famous detective, the Continental Op, by throwing in a cameo of Mickey Linehan, another detective that worked with the nameless shamus.

Overall, Joe Gores did a great job tackling a difficult task. Most readers are wary of stories that are continued by a different author, and I am usually in that group as well, but I think Spade and Archer nailed it.

It's hard to match a classic book like the Maltese Falcon, but Joe Gores did just that, and in some respects, surpassed it. show less

"Spade & Archer: The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon" by Joe Gores is first rate and a real addition to the tradition of the hard boiled detective genre. Gores, a noted Hammett scholar and Edgar Award-winning novelist, got authorization from the Hammett estate for this novel. I am suspicious of "authorized works" because authorized novels have been disappointing in the past and tend to be bland and less than creative in the name of preserving the memory of some long dead person. Gore's work is fortunately anything but bland and is in the Hammett style.

This prequel begins seven years before Joel Cairo, Casper Guttman et al cross paths with Spade. Sam is a young man when the story begins in 1921 but he already has that show more special toughness we learned to love in the Maltese Falcon. Spade recovers part of a haul of gold stolen from a ship. The missing gold, the mastermind behind the heist, and a litany of characters, some of whom we know from the Falcon crop up throughout the novel weaving an interesting plot that plays itself out to a Hammett like conclusion all the while building the backstory on Spade himself. We are introduced to Miles Archer, his cheating wife Iva, the incompetent bully cop Dundy, his friendly, professional subordinate Tom Polhaus, and smart and adoring secretary Effie Perine. Unfortunately we don't learn a lot about this well know cast of characters but through them we come to know Sam Spade.

The original's gritty dialogue is back. It's as though were transported to the 1920's once again. No matter who he talks to Spade is short and to the point. The reader can feel the delivery Bogart would have given these lines. Gores delights the reader familiar Hammett with quotes from the Maltese Falcon and references to other Hammett works.

Spade & Archer is wonderful novel. Its inventive plot is entertaining and moves the story forward all the while craftily teaching us about a classic character, Sam Spade. This book is well worth the read. show less

Detective Sam Spade has become an archetypal character in American popular culture…the hard-bitten private eye beating the gritty streets of the city in search of a justice he isn’t even sure exists, a fool for the femme fatale. But have you ever wondered how Sam Spade became Sam Spade? Well, even if you haven’t, this well-written prequel to Hammett’s 'The Maltese Falcon' is a definite pleaser. The author, Joe Gores, is a former private eye himself, and it shows in the finely tuned series of steps his Spade takes to solve the cases presented to him. Over the course of seven years, we see Sam leave the Continental Detective Agency to start on his own, meet innocent young secretary Effie Perine, match wits again and again with a show more master criminal who always seems to escape at the last minute, and take on dim-witted Miles Archer as a partner in his agency and Archer’s wife Iva as a partner in his bed.

Extremely well-written with pitch-perfect hard-boiled style, 'Spade and Archer' is a delight for fans of Hammett old and new. show less

I've enjoyed almost all Gores books, but for some reason this one put me off at the beginning. Maybe it was the obvious retelling of the Flitcraft story (the famous story from The Maltese Falcon) so early in the story. But the book righted itself soon, mostly because of its portrayal of San Francisco in the 20s. By the end, the last line of the book was also maybe a bit obvious, but fun.