Spade & Archer: The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

ISBN: 0307277062

Author: Gores, Joe

Condition: New

A wonderfully dark, pitch-perfect noir prequel to The Maltese Falcon, featuring Dashiell Hammetts beloved detective, Sam Spade.Its 1921-seven years before Sam Spade will solve the famous case of the Maltese Falcon. Hes just set up his own agency in San Francisco and he gets off to a quick start, working cases (he doesnt do domestic) and hiring a bright young secretary named Effie Perrine. When hes hired by a prominent San Francisco banker to find his missing son, Spade gets the break hes 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, hell fall in love-though it wont turn out for the best. It never does with dames.