The Maltese Falcon
- 254
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
- The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time
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Our view
“The Maltese Falcon” matters less for its puzzle than for Sam Spade, a detective seen only from the outside. Hammett never reports a thought or a feeling, only words, gestures and faces, and that cold method gives the San Francisco of 1930 its atmosphere. Some readers find the cast too unpleasant to care about and the attitudes of the period hard to get past; others consider this the hardboiled novel at its purest.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
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. The story is told entirely in external third-person narrative; there is no description whatsoever of any character's thoughts or feelings, only what they say and do, and how they look. The novel has been adapted several times for the cinema. It is considered part of the hardboiled genre, which Hammett played a major part in popularizing.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.5 across 302 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 67% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Classics average of 7.7. That is how 7.6 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 6.8 | 32 | 11% |
| Hardcover | 7.6 | 270 | 89% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Maltese Falcon?
It has 254 pages — shorter than 91% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Classics — with scores between 7.5 and 7.6, closest to this book.
