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Content snapshot
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Violence
Some
Murders; some physical violence; gunshots
Language
Some
Adult language in the hard-boiled register of 1930s noir
Sexual Content
Barely any
Some sexual suggestiveness; Sam Spade's relationship with his partner's wife
Substance Use
Barely any
Alcohol in the noir setting
Emotional Intensity
Some
The moral complexity of Sam Spade's code; the paranoia of a world where everyone is lying
What this book is about
When Sam Spade's partner Miles Archer is shot dead while tailing a man for a mysterious woman named Miss Wonderly, Spade is pulled into a web of competing greed around the Maltese Falcon—a legendary statuette of incalculable value. Hammett's 1930 novel essentially invented the hard-boiled detective novel and created one of American fiction's definitive protagonists: a man who operates by a code that has nothing to do with conventional morality, and everything to do with not being played for a sucker.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Multiple murders in the noir tradition
Adult moral complexity throughout
Reader Verification
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