Review: Return of the Maltese Falcon - Max Allan Collins

I’m starting the new year off well with an excellent novel from Max Allan Collins. I’ve been a fan of THE MALTESE FALCON since I read the novel in high school, the first thing by Dashiell Hammett I ever read, I believe. Needless to say, I was hooked. Now the original magazine version of the novel, as serialized in the iconic pulp BLACK MASK, is in public domain, and that’s what Collins has used as the starting point for his new novel RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON, which, as he points out, is a continuation rather than a true sequel.

And if, by some chance, you’ve never read Hammett’s novel, stop right now and read it before you read this review, and absolutely don’t tackle Collins’ novel until you’ve read the original, because they’re both, of necessity, full of spoilers. I mean it!

The action starts a week after the end of THE MALTESE FALCON, in December 1928. The dead Miles Archer’s desk has been removed from the office of Spade & Archer, and Effie Perrine, Sam Spade’s secretary, has put up a Christmas tree in its place. (Does that make this a Christmas novel? It sure does!)

A potential client pays a visit to Spade’s office. She’s Rhea Gutman, Casper Gutman’s daughter, and she wants to hire Spade to find the real Falcon. The one in Hammett’s novel was a fake, remember? Rhea is the first of four clients who give Spade a retainer to find the dingus. The others are Chicago gambler Dixie Monahan, Corrine Wonderly, the younger sister of femme fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy, and Steward Blackwood, an official from the British Museum who claims that institution is the true owner of the Falcon.

Spade plays all these characters against each other. He has run-ins with the cops. A dead body turns up. Spade is hit on the head and knocked out, and he’s captured by a gunman who wants to kill him. This is great stuff in the classic hardboiled private eye mode, the kind of thing that Dashiell Hammett invented, along with Carroll John Daly. Stylistically, Collins’ fast-moving, straight-ahead prose isn’t quite as stripped down as Hammett’s, but it’s certainly in the same ballpark.

Being constrained to use only the elements to be found in the original novel’s pulp serialization turns out to be a good thing. Collins is able to bring on-stage characters who were only mentioned before and invent new ones who fit perfectly in that setting. The resolution of the mystery and the way the book wraps everything up are extremely satisfying.

A number of years ago, I read and loved Joe Gores’ prequel novel SPADE & ARCHER. RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON is even better. I’m glad Max Allen Collins wrote it, and I’m grateful to Hard Case Crime for publishing it. It’ll be out officially in e-book and hardcover editions tomorrow. For hardboiled fans, I give it my highest recommendation.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ten Detective Aces, June 1947

We start the year on these Sunday pulp posts with an issue of TEN DETECTIVE ACES that sports a really dynamic cover by Norman Saunders. Of course, I repeat myself. Saunders' covers were always really dramatic. However, that may be the best thing about this issue. Hard to say because I don't recognize the names of most of the authors. The ones I do recognize are C.M. Kornbluth, Robert Turner, Joe Archibald, and Ray Cummings. Still, just because I don't know them doesn't mean their stories aren't any good. I don't own this issue and it doesn't appear to be on-line anywhere, so for me, it'll have to remain a mystery. But I do like that cover.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Exciting Western, September 1947

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the image, but it’s a photograph instead of a scan this time since I find myself without scanning capability at the moment. The cover is by the prolific and always dependable Sam Cherry, and it’s something of a rarity because it actually illustrates one of the stories in this issue. More on that later.

“Alias Adam Jones” is a rather bland title for one of W.C. Tuttle’s rollicking adventures of hapless range detectives Tombstone Jones and Speedy Smith. (The editors of EXCITING WESTERN loved the word “rollicking”.) In this novella, one of Tombstone’s long-winded, colorful lies causes Speedy to be kidnapped, and that plunges the boys into a complicated case of rustlers, inheritances, and mistaken identities. This plot is actually a little easier to figure out than some in the series, and a few late developments come from ’way, ’way out in left field, but the whole thing races along in wonderful fashion and Tuttle’s dialogue had me laughing out loud in places. This series is pretty formulaic, but the more I read of it, the more I love it.

“The Marshal of Goldfork” is a stand-alone novelette by Walker A. Tompkins, another of my favorite Western pulpsters. Set in a California mining boomtown during the Gold Rush, it’s about the final showdown between the local lawman and a saloon owner, both of whom were badly injured in a shootout with each other five months earlier, before the town was snowed in for the winter. Now it’s the spring thaw, and the lawman has recovered from his injuries and is back to settle the score and bring law and order to the town. Tompkins was great at keeping a story racing along, and he does so here, creating some interesting characters in the process. This is an excellent yarn.

Joseph Chadwick is yet another favorite of mine. His novelette in this issue, “The Indian Ring”, is about a hardboiled Arizona rancher who takes on the web of corruption involving the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the army, and various crooked business interests. Chadwick was one of the best at tough, gritty action, and this is a fine story that could have been expanded into a top-notch novel if he had chosen to do so.

Next up is “Too Smart for His Own Good” by Andrew Bronson, who published 15 stories in various Thrilling Group Western pulps during the Forties and Fifties. This story about a cowboy trying to recover a ranch payroll that was stolen from him is the one illustrated by Sam Cherry’s cover. In fact, it matches that cover painting so exactly that I have a hunch it was written to match. And the fact that all of “Bronson’s” stories appeared in Thrilling Group pulps leads me to suspect he might have been editor Charles S. Strong, who, as Chuck Stanley, did a feature in EXCITING WESTERN called “The Cowboy Had a Word For It”. Strong wrote a number of Western novels under the Chuck Stanley name, too, and was perfectly capable of knocking out a short story overnight to fit a cover painting. Pure speculation on my part, of course. The story itself, in this case, is entertaining but not particularly memorable.

I haven’t read a great deal by Richard Brister, but so far he’s proven to be a pretty dependable Western author. His story “Bandy Legs” is an offbeat yarn about a rivalry between two storekeepers that turns deadly. This is a well-written and suspenseful story that I enjoyed.

Cliff Walters is another very prolific Western pulpster who is forgotten these days. “Broad Shoulders” is about a big, powerful hombre who could accomplish a lot if he tried, but nothing seems to move him to either working or fighting. That changes during the course of the story in a fairly predictable way. This is a minor tale but entertaining.

“Crisis on the Curly Q” is by Don Alviso, who wrote several dozen stories for the pulps, nearly all of them Westerns. It’s a humorous story about a ranch cook who goes on a drunken bender and loses the wagonload of supplies he’s supposed to be taking back to the Curly Q spread. I wasn’t sure I was going to finish this one, but I stuck with it and it turned out to be mildly amusing. Absolutely unmemorable, though.

The issue wraps up with “Men of Their Word” by William O’Sullivan. It’s about two Irish prospectors who are partners but still scrap with each other all the time. They have to put aside their differences to keep from being swindled by a couple of slickers. This is another story that’s pretty lightweight but reasonably enjoyable.

Overall, this is a good issue of EXCITING WESTERN, although any issue without Navajo Tom Raine and Alamo Paige seems a little lacking to me. However, two very good stand-alone stories by Walker A. Tompkins and Joseph Chadwick makes up for that, and I always enjoy Tombstone and Speedy. So if you have this issue on your shelves, it’s worth reading. You can also find the whole issue on-line if you want to check it out that way.