Spade & Archer: The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon [Rauer Buchschnitt] [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

A while back, mystery writer Robert Parker tried his hand at bringing Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe back to life. In this book, writer and former private eye Joe Gores takes on the equally daunting task of filling us in on Sam Spade's career prior to The Maltese Falcon. Gores prepared for this in a previous volume in which he has Spade creator Dashiell Hammett star in his own detective story.

In Spade and Archer, Gores succeeds in recreating the characters as well as the atmosphere of 1920s San Francisco. There are times, especially in the exchanges between Spade and police detectives Dundy and Polhaus, when the reader feels as if the dialogue was taken directly from Hammett with echoes from Bogart's on screen version of Spade. The plot has Spade chasing master criminal St. Clair McPhee over the course of 5 years while solving a series of lesser crimes. As always, the plot is secondary to the seedy atmosphere, snappy dialogue and interaction between the characters. All of this rings true to the hard-boiled tradition and allows the reader a passport back in time to witness the reinvention of the genre.

The only time I felt Gores misfired is in portraying a fight in which Spade is ambushed by 3 men variously wielding brass knuckles, a baseball bat and a knife. Spade not only dispatches all 3 but does so in less than a minute, resembling James Bond more than Hammett's shambling gumshoe.

More importantly, Gores fully captures the spirit of the hard-boiled detective: operating alone in the margins of the law, disguising a rigorous moral code with a rough and cynical exterior. In Spade, the reader can watch an archetype develop that is portrayed over the next 80 years, perhaps most fully realized today in Parker's Spenser series.

The book succeeds in its very ambitious goal. As a result, the reader can once again "walk the streets of San Francisco with the city's most memorable fictional character" as Booklist says. It was worth waiting for.

In the thoroughly entertaining, Spade & Archer: The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, the title characters brassily bandy about "booze, bribes, and biddies" in talk of field expenses They might well also talk "bullion, bimbos, and burglars" in a bull session about their investigative work. Or "treachery, tricks, and treasure." In a string of cases (presented in three parts) dealing with stolen British gold, grisly murders, union breaking, ship stowaways, bank fraud, the Bohemian Club, Chinese legends and nationalists, adultery, bootlegging, an elusive criminal mastermind, etc., this atmospheric and suspenseful novel covers select Sam Spade investigations in San Francisco over an eight-year period.

Joe Gores' prequel to The Maltese Falcon delivers pitch-perfect 1920s detective noir. As one reads one can almost see a (young) Humphrey Bogart-like Samuel Spade as he hitches his hip onto secretary Effie Perine's desk and "sweetheart"s her. Their introduction to one another is a don't-miss event. The FALCON cops, Dundy and Polhaus, also play their lived-in roles in SPADE & ARCHER, as does Spade's lawyer, Sid Wise, and it is a delight to see their histories fleshed out and them coming "alive" again in a seamless companion work.

Naturally Spade's back story with Miles and Iva Archer infuses the novel, and the author convincingly sets up the tensions within this percolating, complicated troika. Sam (who is 27 when the story starts) possesses brains, toughness, and survivor instincts. Freewheeling Miles, not so much, though he is, in Spade's estimation, " 'a good detective." And seemingly fickle Iva just doesn't want to be without a man in her bed. If anything in SPADE & ARCHER is underdeveloped it is the Archer arc. One hankers for bigger helpings of these two very different private eyes to understand their dynamic and what leads to events in Hammett's "sequel." Approaching the conclusion of ARCHER & SPADE, one may wonder if some pages were left out when both Iva and Miles are conspicuously absent. However, the book's final exchange between Spade and Effie provides felicitous and entirely justified cover. Still, the Archers could arguably have played more prominent roles in this novel.

SPADE & ARCHER's crystal clear prose vividly recreates hard-boiled Sam Spade's ever foggy San Francisco. The old days, when a phone call cost a nickel and a cup of coffee a dime, shimmer, even without the Golden Gate (which hadn't been built yet). It's a time when modern political correctness, social safety nets, and sweeping civil rights hadn't been dreamed up. It places us beside men in worsted wool suits who smoke constantly, drive Model Ts, and live in a less crowded society rife with the dangers fit to the time.

As a former private detective himself, Gores' experience beefs up the muscularity of Archer and Spade's operative work and also injects the complex cases Sam solves with a factual, down-to-earth credibility.

SPADE & ARCHER is a practically perfect novel that should take its place beside the famed THE MALTESE FALCON as unimpeachable Spade lore, and classic tough-guy detective literature. After all, what's not to love about cinematic Bogart/Spade dialogue like this:

" 'Where's the girl, Sam?'

"The tension went out of Spade. 'I've got her stashed.'

" 'Gimme her name so we can check her out,' said Dundy.

" '....Go out and find her yourself. I'm not stopping you.' "

4.7 stars.

I started reading Joe Gores back in the 1970s when he was writing his Dan Kearney short stories for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, then began writing novels of the same. From there I discovered his other works, including HAMMETT, which was an excellent book and anchored in the time period.

With SPADE & ARCHER, Gores also makes use of the time period, making it all fresh and familiar while at the same time easing the reader into the world. When I read the original THE MALTESE FALCON, I was surprised at how little author Dashiell Hammett used point of view. The novel was stripped down, bare prose that focused on action and reaction. SPADE & ARCHER is the same, and that may be off-putting to some readers who like to crawl inside the skins of their characters.

The mystery is very intricate and well done. As Hammett did before him, Joe Gores also worked as a real-life private investigator. He brings his love of the craft and of the genre to this book. Hopefully it won't be the only one Gores writes in this time frame, or about the iconic Sam Spade.