The Maltese Falcon is a 1930 detective novel by American writer Dashiell Hammett, originally serialized in the magazine Black Mask beginning with the September 1929 issue.

[1][2] The main character, Sam Spade (who also appeared later in some lesser-known short stories), was a departure from Hammett's nameless detective, The Continental Op.

Spade combined several features of previous detectives, notably his cold detachment, keen eye for detail, unflinching and sometimes ruthless determination to achieve his own form of justice, and a complete lack of sentimentality.

"Miss Wonderley" is soon revealed to be an acquisitive adventuress named Brigid O'Shaughnessy, who is involved in the search for a black statuette of unknown but substantial value.

Others are after this falcon, including Joel Cairo, an effeminate criminal, and Casper Gutman, a fat man accompanied by a vicious young gunman, Wilmer Cook.

The District Attorney ties the shootings to Dixie Monahan, a Chicago gambler who had employed Thursby as a bodyguard in the Far East.

Gutman traced the falcon to General Kemidov, a Russian exile in Constantinople and hired O'Shaughnessy to get it; she brought in Cairo to help.

Spade awakens alone and returns to his office where a wounded ship's captain staggers in with a package containing the falcon and dies.

Maybe he does care for her, Spade admits, but tells her, "I won't play the sap for you" – for personal reasons as well as needing justice for his dead partner; if she can get off with a long prison term, he'll wait for her, but if she hangs, he'll always remember her.

"[3] Hammett reportedly drew upon his years as a detective in creating many of the other characters for The Maltese Falcon, which reworks elements from some of his stories published in Black Mask magazine in 1925, "The Whosis Kid" and "The Gutting of Couffignal".