Once again, my familiarity with Hammet's work is through the movies. In spite of all the times I have watched the classic Bogart film, I never read the book until now. If you have never seen the movie, it's the story of a Private Investigator (Sam Spade) who is hired to find a mysterious statuette of a jewel studded falcon. All I kept thinking is the dialogue suited Humphrey Bogart perfectly. However, the character Brigid O'Shaughnessy is much younger in the novel than the 35 year old Mary Astor who played her in the film. Part of the characterization in the novel that was left out of the film is the stereotypical homosexuality of Joel Cairo who was played by Peter Lorre. I didn't care for this book as much as Hammett's The Thin Man but as a genre book it is fine.
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