Spade & Archer Paperback / softback

The stunning prequel to Dashiell Hammett's crime classic THE MALTESE FALCON. When Sam Spade gets drawn into the Maltese Falcon case, we know what to expect: straight talk, hard questions, no favours, and no way for anyone to get underneath the protective shell he wears like a second skin.

We know that his late partner, Miles Archer, was a son of a bitch; that Spade is sleeping with Archer's wife.

What we don't know is how Spade became who he is. Now SPADE & ARCHER completes the picture. 1921: Spade sets up his own agency in San Francisco and clients quickly start coming through the door.

The next seven years will see him dealing with booze runners, water-front thugs, stowaways, banking swindlers, gold smugglers, bumbling cops, and the illegitimate daughter of Sun Yat-sen; with murder, other men's mistresses, and long-missing money.

He'll bring in Archer as a partner, though it was Archer who stole his girl while he was fighting in World War I.

He'll tangle with a villain who never loses his desire to make Spade pay big for ruining what should've been the perfect crime. And he'll fall in love - though it won't turn out for the best.

It never does with dames...