Three of Spades

Having read and very much enjoyed Max Allan Collins’ Return of the Maltese Falcon, his 2026 sequel to Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 Sam Spade novel, I was stoked to find this bit of news in Collins’ blog:

I’m pleased to announce I’ve signed with Hard Case Crime to do two more Sam Spade novels.

Launching a new Spade series wasn’t my intention in writing Return of the Maltese Falcon. I merely wanted to be out there first with a sequel to the classic original, now that it was in the public domain, and was presumptuous enough to think I could get it right.

As I’ve mentioned here, when I finished writing the book, and was pleased with it, my wife, Barb, warned me to brace myself –she said, Not everyone would like me appointing myself to a task that some might think ought never have been attempted. My thinking was, Somebody’s going to do this, and it might as well be me.

And I was surprised and pleased that the reactions were overwhelmingly favorable, generating some of my best reviews ever. A few naysayers weighed in, though were very much in the minority. Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t feel vindicated, I felt relieved.

Only when I saw how well Return of the Maltese Falcon was doing did I begin thinking about writing more Sam Spade. Spade is a character about whom Hammett might well have written another dozen or two novels, like Gardner with Perry Mason, Christie with Hercule Poirot or Rex Stout with Nero Wolfe. And of course Hammett, before turning his back on mystery writing, had written three Spade short stories, plus there’d been the popular Spade radio show with Howard Duff.

But what came to my mind was offering my publisher a trilogy, the first of which would be the already existing Return. I found it interesting to suggest two more Spade novels, each separated by ten years or so—to see what Spade was up to in the war years and then the McCarthy-era ’50s (which obviously have resonance with Hammett’s life).

I wrote a fairly lengthy proposal and Hard Case Crime’s Charles Ardai, with support from parent company Titan’s Nick and Vivian Landau and my editor Andrew Sumner, responded favorably. I am now about to begin work on Prey for the Maltese Falcon, set in 1939.

In some ways it’s more challenging than Return, which gave me the luxury of working within the parameters of the original novel—its characters, its locations, its themes. Now Spade is ten years older, and the case I’ve constructed takes him all sorts of places that the original novel and my sequel didn’t.

Wish me luck.

So when might readers be able to procure copies of Prey for the Maltese Falcon? Collins tells me to look for it in the fall of 2027, “no more specific than that as yet.”

A Hammett-Seasoned Assembly

(Above) R-Evolution, American artist Marco Cochrane’s 47-foot-tall, steel rod-and-mesh sculpture of a nude woman, rises from Embarcadero Plaza on the San Francisco waterfront. It has stood there in front of the Ferry Building since April 2025.

Time was when I visited San Francisco regularly—maybe once a year, or at least once every couple of years. However, before last week, a full decade and a half had elapsed since my previous call on Northern California’s most colorful and captivating metropolis; the last time was back in 2010, when Bouchercon took over the Hyatt Regency hotel on the Embarcadero, directly across from the historic Ferry Building. During the interim, I’d seen stories about how that City by the Bay had fallen into social and financial decline. Elon Musk, the South Africa-born right-winger who founded Tesla and destroyed Twitter (today’s X)—and who is a product of Silicon Valley, the high-tech hub located just to the south—had portrayed San Francisco as “a crime-ridden wasteland where homeless drug addicts freely roam.”

So I was fully prepared to see this place I have loved for so long reduced to a shadow of its erstwhile glory. Yet that isn’t what I found. In fact, central San Francisco looked pretty much like every other big city I’ve traveled to since the COVID-19 pandemic. There were scattered empty storefronts along Market Street, and one of my all-time favorite breakfast venues—Dottie’s True Blue Café, formerly on Jones Street but moved since my last drop-by to a larger, Sixth Street location—had shut its doors. Yes, there were some unhoused residents on sidewalks, benefiting from this burg’s moderate climate and extensive public services, but no more than I see nowadays in Seattle or Portland ... and none of them were shooting up in the gutters. San Francisco struck me as a locale that’s weathered bad economic times and is on its way to finding its footing again.

It certainly did a superb job of hosting the 2026 Left Coast Crime convention, which was held last week (Thursday, February 26, to Sunday, March 1) in the same Hyatt Regency I’d frequented 15 years ago.

Not surprisingly, given that (1) we were in Dashiell Hammett country and (2) this year brought an end to copyright restrictions on the author’s detective-fiction masterpiece, The Maltese Falcon, there was considerable attention paid to that 1930 novel. Falcon statuettes were presented to all four of LCC 2026’s guests of honor. One of the gathering’s Thursday panel discussions found Bay Area author Mark Coggins and Randal S. Brandt—who writes The Rap Sheet’s “Book Into Film” column and curates the California Detective Fiction Collection at the University of California, Berkeley’s Bancroft Library—examining the book’s still-enduring impact on crime fiction. And that same night, Coggins and Brandt appeared together at a downtown used bookshop to chat with other mystery enthusiasts about Poltroon Press’ recent re-release of The Maltese Falcon, to which both contributed.

One of this convention’s first panel exchanges was “Let’s Talk About the Black Bird,” which addressed Dashiell Hammett’s best-known novel, The Maltese Falcon. Participating were—left to right—authors Elizabeth Crowens (Bye Bye Blackbird), Domenic Stansberry (the North Beach mysteries, The Lizard), and Kelli Stanley (the Miranda Corbie series, The Reckoning), as well as librarian Randal Brandt, who moderated the colloquy. Not shown, but also part of the group, was Mark Coggins. He took this shot and e-mailed it to me with a note that joked, “Looks like someone photobombed them.”

Hours after that panel presentation concluded, Brandt and Coggins (shown above on the left and right, respectively) joined San Francisco author and philanthropist Robert Mailer Anderson (center) at Kayo Books, a treasury of used works on Post Street downtown, to celebrate Hammett’s considerable influence on today’s detective fiction. Afterward, Anderson—who rents the pocket-edition apartment at 891 Post where Hammett lived from 1927 to 1929 and penned his first three novels—escorted a few members of the audience on a brief tour of those rehabbed digs.

Yes, that’s me, Jeff Pierce, seated in the very apartment (#401) where ex-Pinkerton operative Hammett crafted his earliest novels and many of his short stories. Neither the wooden desk nor the typewriter are original fixtures, but they certainly add to the crib’s Jazz Age ambiance. (Photograph by Mark Coggins)

In a memorable treat for yours truly, immediately prior to the Kayo Books event, Coggins and I accompanied local novelist Robert Mailer Anderson (Boonville) to the fourth-floor apartment Hammett once rented at 891 Post Street, one block east of the bookshop. It was there, in the late 1920s, that Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, and The Maltese Falcon were all batted out noisily on a typewriter, the author likely working longer into the night than his neighbors would have preferred. For many years, architect and Hammett fan Bill Arney lived in those 275-square-foot lodgings, but after his passing in 2021, Anderson took over the rent. He has since restored the apartment to how it might have looked during Hammett’s time. Anderson is also working on a project that will bring modern authors into the place and film them reading excerpts from Hammett’s prose.

For a guy like me, who discovered Dashiell Hammett, Sam Spade, and the Continental Op during college, and who’s been re-reading their adventures ever since, this opportunity to stand where their fictional lives began was nothing short of electrifying.

Those four days in mostly sunny San Francisco were a whirlwind of activities, from genre panel discussions and serendipitous encounters in hallways with friends to the discovery of new attractions the city has to offer. A few of my other favorite experiences:

• My daily morning walks around downtown, during which I not only got exercise and fresh air, but made a point of reaching buildings and monuments familiar to me from my years of writing about SF history.

• Sitting down with local author Kelli Stanley and talking about her efforts to relocate from the United States to Europe; her latest novel, The Reckoning; and how she couldn’t relax at LCC because she needed to get home and finish her sequel to that book by its deadline.

• Chatting up the friendly doorkeepers at the Hyatt Regency and finally questioning them about where to find the best Mexican food in the Mission District. This provoked much debate and research, until they finally directed me to Gallardos at 3248 18th Street (corner of 18th and Shotwell). I took the BART train down to the 16th and Mission station, then walked south on Mission and left on 18th for three more blocks. My being the only white guy in the restaurant suggested authenticity, as did the fact that credit cards weren’t accepted—Gallardos is cash-only. And the food? Well, I ordered the Guadalajara Dinner, a combination plate featuring an enchilada, a chili relleno, and a taco. With a side of house-made tortillas! It was savory and filling, and more than I could eat, but I had no refrigerator in my hotel room to hold the leftovers. I’ll definitely go back there the next time I’m in the Bay Area.

• Finding myself at the hotel bar next to Chicago’s Lori Rader-Day, an hour before Saturday night’s Lefty Awards banquet was to commence. I first met Lori during an airport shuttle ride into Raleigh, North Carolina, for Bouchercon 2015—back when she was just starting her career composing fiction. Since then, she’s produced six more novels, among them this year’s Wreck Your Heart, and survived breast cancer. I have done … well, nothing even remotely so courageous or dramatic. But it was good to catch up for a spell over gin-and-tonics.

• And then after the banquet and prize dispersals, joining Los Angeles author Gary Phillips at that same bar. He told me about the delights of rearing his late daughter’s young child, and briefed me on his soon-forthcoming novel, The Haul, which recounts the story of a professional thief coming out of retirement to engineer “a multi-million-dollar raid of a tech billionaire’s secret bunker.” Gary and Lori are such kind and generous people; I’m sorry I live so far from them.

When Sunday rolled around, I was not close to being ready for departure. I mused on how wonderful it might be to spend another week roaming San Francisco, just photographing sidewalk scenes and the elegant decorations of old buildings. I hadn’t had a chance during my stay to wander out to spacious Golden Gate Park. Or to hop a Powell-Hyde Cable Car to The Buena Vista café, which is credited with introducing Irish coffees to the United States in 1952. Nor had I stopped at John’s Grill on Ellis Street, where Spade ordered “chops, baked potatoes, [and] sliced tomatoes” in The Maltese Falcon.

But I had to be back home the next day, so couldn’t stay. Next time, I told myself. And next time would be sooner than 15 years off!

Thursday’s “Thoughts on Podcasting” session was moderated by Jaime Parker Stickle (far left), author of the Corey in Los Angeles series and host of The Girl with the Same Name. Tackling the topic with her were Sabrina Thatcher (Slaying the Craft: Inside the Mind of a Thriller Writer), Jim Fusilli (Writers at Work), Mike Adamick (Crime Adjacent), and Dan White (OutWithDan).

“The Liars Panel” on Friday was one of this convention’s more unusual offerings, but its title says it all. Five writers told stories of their encounters with famous people, and the audience was charged with identifying which were factual and which were fabricated. Shown from left to right: Lee Matthew Goldberg (The Great Gimmelmans), Holly West (The Money Block), the legendary Sara Paretsky (creator of the V.I. Warshawski series), Lori Rader-Day (this panel’s moderator), and Lina Chern (Tricks of Fortune).

Guest of Honor Gary Phillips was interviewed onstage Friday afternoon by fellow fictionist Christa Faust (The Get Off). During their engaging 45-minute exchange, Phillips was asked which of all his books he would like to have outlast him. His answer: Violent Spring, his 1994 debut novel (featuring private eye Ivan Monk), and his 1999 standalone, The Jook.

Finally, Lori Rader-Day’s selfie showing the two of us enjoying chilled libations in the Hyatt Regency’s lobby bar.

Spade Goes Back to Bird Hunting

Pinkerton detective-turned-author Dashiell Hammett realized he had something special on his hands when he submitted his revised, typewritten version of The Maltese Falcon to publisher Alfred A. Knopf in July 1929, asking that Knopf (who had previously handled his books Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) practice restraint in editing this latest manuscript. As Hammett scholar Richard Layman has explained: “He knew what he was doing, he said. Hammett wanted to get his third book right. It was a departure work for him, his attempt to break away from the formulas of pulp fiction to create a work with serious literary value.” Although the writer resisted changes by copy editors, he continued to tweak his own story—which had originally appeared (in slightly different form) in five monthly segments in Black Mask magazine—right up to when Knopf finally sent it away for printing. The completed novel was released on February 14, 1930.

Ninety-six years later, with the copyright on Hammett’s best-remembered (and most-filmed) tale having lapsed at the end of 2025, Iowa crime-fictionist Max Allan Collins seeks to add another “something special” to the Falcon legend. In Return of the Maltese Falcon, released this month by Hard Case Crime, he has boldly resuscitated the original book’s “hard and shifty” protagonist, San Francisco private investigator Samuel Spade, and sent him back out to locate the bejeweled bird of the title—which, you will likely recall, was never recovered in Hammett’s hard-boiled classic.

Penning a sequel to such a seminal genre work can only be characterized as intimidating. Indeed, Collins acknowledges that “avoiding strictly pure mimicry, and writing in my own style while honoring Hammett’s, was a tightrope to walk.” But the critical reception for Return of the Maltese Falcon has so far been generally favorable. Kirkus Reviews remarks that “Collins’ dialogue sounds pleasingly like Hammett’s; his plotting is even twistier; and if his descriptions mix Hammett’s terse, affectless minimalism with Raymond Chandler’s fondness for florid similes, that’s clearly, as he notes in an engaging coda, his intention. Fans convinced that nobody could possibly continue a tale that ends so definitely owe it to themselves to give Collins a try.” Reviewer Ray Palen of Bookreporter says Return is “a work of wonder, and I enjoyed every second of it. Collins has not just inhabited Hammett’s world but breathed new life into it and made it distinctly his own.” Finally, prolific author and blogger James Reasoner observes that, “stylistically, Collins’ fast-moving, straight-ahead prose isn’t quite as stripped down as Hammett’s, but it’s certainly in the same ballpark.” He adds: “The resolution of the mystery and the way the book wraps everything up are extremely satisfying.”

As Collins has stated in the past, he fell in love with The Maltese Falcon in 1961, when he was 13 years old and first watched the 1941 Humphrey Bogart movie adaptation on television. Not until much later did he consider recruiting Sam Spade into a new story—not necessarily a Falcon follow-up, but at least another novel starring the same principal. (Spade’s single other book-length appearance came in Joe Gores’ authorized 2009 Falcon prequel, Spade & Archer.) Collins’ idea for a sequel dates back to 2024, when he included it in a future-projects sales pitch to Titan Books, the British owner of Hard Case Crime. Like numerous other readers, Collins was curious to know what happened after the events recounted in Hammett’s yarn—not just what became of the ever-elusive falcon statuette, but, as he told CrimeReads recently, how Sam Spade might “extricate himself from the ruins he’s made of his life and business.”

To help him answer those questions in Return of the Maltese Falcon, Collins brings back most of the original novel’s cast—some in secondary roles—while beefing up the involvement of several players to whom Hammett had assigned lesser parts. (Have no doubt: You should definitely have read the 1930 book before tackling Return.)

His action begins in December 1928, shortly after Spade failed to locate the gold, gem-encrusted (but now black enamel-covered) falcon at the center of the earlier story, and handed over his fetching but deceitful client, Brigid O’Shaughnessy, to the San Francisco cops for the murder of his detective partner, Miles Archer. Effie Perrine, Spade’s “lanky, tawny-haired” secretary (at 23, a decade Spade’s junior), has erected a Christmas tree where Archer’s desk once sat, and their office is looking “moderately successful” despite the “bad publicity” of late. Through the door comes Rhea Gutman, the “pale and petite,” 18-year-old blonde “daughter” of corpulent criminal Casper Gutman, who supposedly spent years chasing after the Maltese falcon, a treasure crafted for the King of Spain in the 1500s, only to have it stolen by a Russian general named Kemidov, and replaced with a fake. It seems that, like her late progenitor, Rhea is hungry to get her hands on the black bird, and she’ll split the rich proceeds with Spade if he can bring it to her.

(Left) The Maltese Falcon, Alfred A. Knopf first edition, 1930.

Not surprisingly, the shamus accepts her offer. What he hadn’t expected was to then be approached by three more people wanting him to find the artifact (what he terms the “dingus”) on their behalf: Chicago gambler Dixie Monahan; a British Museum official, Steward Blackwood, who contends his institution holds true title to the falcon; and Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s younger sister, Corrine Wonderly. While raking in retainers from them all, he returns to his hunt for what has become the most famous “MacGuffin” in crime-fiction history. Spade’s investigation will eventually lead him to a violent clash with Casper Gutman’s erstwhile “gunsel,” Wilmer Cook; jail interviews with the aforementioned Miss O’Shaughnessy as well as dandyish Joel Cairo, familiar from the original tale and here claiming to know a private collector who’ll pay handsomely for the statuette; run-ins with police and the local district attorney; the discovery of an unidentified corpse in San Francisco Bay, in whose pocket is found Spade’s business card; a Golden Age-style gathering of suspects he hopes will flush out a killer; and late-in-the-game identity switches that I, for one, didn’t see coming.

When I first learned that Max Allan Collins would be revitalizing Sam Spade in a continuation novel—a sequel to one of American detective fiction’s founding yarns, no less—I felt a moment’s consternation. However, I reminded myself that Collins, who was named a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master in 2017, is a crackerjack tale-spinner who has given us two estimable series (a historical one starring Chicago gumshoe Nate Heller, and a second featuring the hit man known only as Quarry), and that he’s already succeeded in extending the life of another notable P.I., Mike Hammer, writing 13 new novels to add to the 13 Mickey Spillane had produced by the time he died in 2006. Furthermore, Collins put another iconic sleuth—Philip Marlowe—through his paces in “The Perfect Crime,” composed for the 1988 collection Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe: A Centennial Celebration, edited by Byron Preiss. (He subsequently swapped Marlowe for Heller and added that story to his 2001 “casebook,” Kisses of Death.)

If anyone had the chops and chutzpah necessary to extend Spade’s otherwise brief career, it was definitely Collins.

With its text having now entered the public domain, this seems to be the season to celebrate Dashiell Hammett’s third novel. Publisher Poltroon Press has brought a new, photo-embellished hardcover version of The Maltese Falcon to market that also features a pair of Spade short stories inked by modern San Francisco-area author Mark Coggins. Blackstone has released its own “collectors edition,” complete with black-and-white illustrations and artistically sprayed page edges. Meanwhile, Steeger Books is selling hardback (or paperback) copies of the Falcon as it was serialized in Black Mask, with more than 2,000 textual variations from the final, 1930 book, and including the original pulp-style interior art by Arthur Rodman Bowker. Finally, notebook maker Field Notes has packaged that same magazine edit in imitation of the World War II-era Armed Service Editions.

Return of the Maltese Falcon is altogether something bigger, though. In this, his 53rd year as a published author (Bait Money, his debut novel, came out in 1973), Collins has given us not only an homage to Hammett’s most memorable composition; he’s drawn a direct line between himself and that august scribbler of yore, emphasizing the fact that he wouldn’t have the award-winning career he does without Hammett and other ink-slinging pioneers having laid the foundations of the popular field in which he toils. There will be Hammett purists who object vociferously to Max Allan Collins, or anybody else, employing Sam Spade in fresh adventures. Yet when the results are as delightful, dramatic, and downright satisfying as Return of the Maltese Falcon, it’s hard to argue that the effort should never have been made.

Below are a few questions I addressed to Collins about the devising of his latest novel. I had intended to post this interview earlier in January, but was delayed by computer problems.

(Above) The Adventures of Sam Spade comic strip from June 6, 1948. You can enjoy more examples of this strip, with their Wildroot Cream-Oil promotions, by clicking here.

J. Kingston Pierce: When, and under what circumstances, did you first discover Dashiell Hammett and Sam Spade?
      
Max Allan Collins: I knew vaguely about him, as a kid, seeing Wildroot Cream-Oil ads in comic books and Sunday sections, tying in with the Sam Spade radio show. These were in comic-strip form and drawn, I believe, by the great Lou Fine.

The TV craze of private-eye shows, which followed the similar fad of TV westerns, led me to Dashiell Hammett’s novels when they were reprinted in 1961 with Harry Bennett covers. I thought then, and now, that The Maltese Falcon was the best private-eye novel ever.

JKP: And when in your career did you start thinking about writing a sequel to The Maltese Falcon? Did your ideas of what might happen in that book change significantly over time, or have the parameters of your latest novel been in place in your mind for a long while?
      
MAC: The Maltese Falcon’s 1929 publication date sparked the idea for my historical Nathan Heller novels—1929 was the year of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, which meant Al Capone and Sam Spade were contemporaries—meaning the private eye now existed in a historical framework. My Nate Heller could bump up against all sorts of real people and real crimes.

Probably around 20 years ago, I looked into when the novel would come into the public domain. The copyright I was looking at was 1930, when the 1929 Black Mask serial was collected in book form by Knopf. I was just keeping an eye on Sam Spade with no exact thought of doing a direct sequel—just another Spade story.

But when it came time to actually pitch the notion to a publisher (Titan/Hard Case Crime), the idea of picking up the story where it left off in Hammett seemed a natural.

(Right) The Maltese Falcon debuted in Black Mask in September 1929.

My wife, Barb, with whom I write the Antiques/Trash ’n’ Treasures mystery series [under the joint pseudonym Barbara Allan], told me to brace myself for attacks.

JKP: Indeed, some people might scold you for your gall in capitalizing on this famous detective tale. Others would ask why we need a Falcon sequel at all. How do you respond to such critics?
      
MAC: I didn’t write it for the critics, particularly the naysayers who haven’t read, or have no intention of ever reading, my book. The novel is born out of my love for Hammett and the P.I. form (which he birthed). As a fan of The Maltese Falcon, I had been frustrated by its inconclusiveness. In certain respects, that unsolved ending seems perfect, the overriding irony. But some readers, myself included, couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened next.

JKP: What do you think you bring to Spade's story that another author might not be able or willing to bring?
      
MAC: I felt up to the job. I knew I could accomplish, or come close to, Hammett’s limited omniscience—his stingy third-person, in which we are never told what the detective is thinking. In a very real way, Sam Spade—not the killings—is the mystery at the heart of The Maltese Falcon.

Spade reveals himself in the original novel in the last few chapters—his strict adherence to his own code of ethics, a personal morality in an amoral world. My novel explores where that leaves him at the end of Hammett’s masterpiece, and how certain things might resolve.

JKP: How did you go about preparing yourself to write a tale in the fashion of Hammett? What characteristics of his writing or storytelling style did you adopt? What, if any, compromises did you make?
      
MAC: The most important thing was to maintain Spade’s lack of inner monologue. The approach in The Maltese Falcon is often described as objective when it’s really quite subjective—Hammett tells us all sorts of things that Spade doesn’t. Consider this line about Brigid: “Her eyes were cobalt-blue prayers.”

I tried to honor the approach of Hammett and the character of Spade without completely abandoning my own style. That my novel was written so many decades later required me to consider it as at least somewhat a period piece. I allowed myself to describe clothing in a way Hammett might not have, for example, although he does do quite a bit of that himself.

But I researched San Francisco in the late ’20s and took Spade to locations that Hammett didn’t. My descriptions of buildings and neighborhoods and such are a slight departure from Hammett and might be considered a compromise. I consider it a necessity.

JKP: Before composing Return, did you re-read the original novel as well as the three Spade short stories he left behind? Did you draw on any academic or critical sources in preparation?
      
MAC: I read The Falcon again three times, twice taking notes, as the novel was of course the primary research source. I consulted no academic studies of Hammett, nor did I revisit other biographies, all of which I believe I’ve read. In addition, I listened to an audio-books version of the original serial in Otto Penzler’s The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories.

I did not re-visit either John Huston’s classic film or Roy Del Ruth’s earlier one, although I have of course seen both, the Huston film numerous times. I wanted to keep Bogart and the other famous players out and use only Hammett’s vision as he reported it.

I read Spade & Archer, by Joe Gores, on its publication in 2009 but did not revisit it. I stayed away from the AMC-TV series, Monsieur Spade. I wanted my sequel to be as pure as possible. I did re-read the three short stories, but used nothing from them. They are rather perfunctory for Hammett.

JKP: There are a number of familiar players revitalized for your story, some of whom—such as Iva Archer, the faithless wife of Spade’s late business partner—win more time in your sequel than they did in Hammett’s original yarn. But which characters did you bring to life that Hammett only mentioned? And of those enriched figures, which one or ones did you most enjoying developing?
      
MAC: I have two favorites, but discussing them would reveal a plot point I don’t wish to expose. Almost every character in Return of the Maltese Falcon appears or is mentioned in Hammett’s novel—Dixie Monahan, for example, and even the late Floyd Thursby, who is explored in some depth. A few have more stage time than Hammett gave them. Really, only Casper Gutman is absent, and that’s because he was killed—typically, off-stage—in The Maltese Falcon.

JKP: Spade actually gets to have sex in this novel! Of course, it's written in a much different era than that in which Hammett was working. Do you think Hammett would approve of your giving readers such an explicit window into his affairs?
      
MAC: Well, Spade had sex in The Maltese Falcon, too. He beds Brigid O’Shaughnessy, cold-bloodedly leaves her sleeping while he goes off to search her place, and later makes her strip. (None of that happens in Huston’s movie, but the earlier 1931 version comes close). I didn’t go anywhere, in that sense, that Hammett didn’t.

JKP: Ach! It’s been long enough since I read The Maltese Falcon, that Huston’s post-Motion Picture Production Code version—sans Spade’s amorous exploits—has supplanted my memory of the original plot, to some extent. But let’s move on.

In both Hammett's original and your new Return, Spade's “boyishly pretty” secretary, Effie Perine, never becomes a subject of her boss' sexual interest, although she seems quite open to the possibility. Did you consider changing their relationship, or is there something essential in their association that you did not want to upset?
      
MAC: I kept it the same, which is ambiguous. Effie licks the paper for one of Spade’s hand-rolled cigarettes while Spade, seated, leans his “weary” head against her hip, calling her “Honey.” To me, the implication in Hammett is that they had either slept together once—giving in to natural urges—or had come close, and decided it was a bad idea for their work relationship. They remain in an uneasy sexual truce.

(Right) Author Dashiell Hammett.

JKP: I must ask about the story you have Spade tell the comely Rhea Gutman on pages 96 and 97 of your new novel, which involves his once having worked for the Continental Detective Agency (presumably in San Francisco) and how he was assigned to find “a young man named Collinson.” First off, that story reminds me very much of Spade’s Flitcraft parable in The Maltese Falcon. Second, “Peter Collinson” was a pseudonym Hammett used early on in his writing career. Third, this memory links Spade firmly to Hammett’s Continental Op, who also worked for Continental. And finally, some of the facets of the story Spade recalls make it clear that Collinson is based on Hammett himself. Brilliant! How much fun did you have in cooking up that digression for Return?

MAC: That was a good deal of fun, but a challenge. Hammett did seemingly discursive but actually pertinent parables, like the Flitcraft one in The Maltese Falcon and the dream referred to in the title of The Glass Key, in all five of his novels. Red Harvest has one, too, and you could argue that the background about the cult in The Dain Curse may serve the same purpose. It was a distinctive element in his style and approach, telling you what the book is about but even reveals something pertinent while seeming to be off on a tangent—for example, the Flitcraft parable can be read as an oblique warning to Brigid that Spade is onto her. I wanted to come up with something of that nature that wasn’t fashioned out of whole cloth. I combined an event from Hammett’s detective days and how his writing life evolved into an apparent block. That “Collins” was in “Collinson” was of course an element. But there had to be a Flitcraft equivalent in my novel. I required it of myself. And obviously Sam Spade had to be a former Continental op.

JKP: When Hammett wrote his novel, it was a "modern" work. Return is very much a historical tale. What efforts did you make to establish and build on the period flavor of Return? How much research did you do into San Francisco of 1928?
      
MAC: The major sources, beyond the original novel, were Don Herron’s wonderful The Dashiell Hammett Tour with its compact, excellent biography of Hammett as well as the locations cited and shown; the WPA guides to San Francisco and California, original editions; and the North Point Press presentation of The Maltese Falcon, which includes vintage photos of locations and is heavily footnoted. A friend also provided a historical photo book on San Francisco.

JKP: Do you appreciate The Maltese Falcon now more than ever, after having dissected it and worked intimately with its plot and players?
      
MAC: My deep appreciation for The Maltese Falcon began 60 years before the writing of this sequel. I should perhaps mention that one of my methods for learning how to write fiction was reading favorite novels as a writer and not a reader, analyzing them as to style and technique. What interested me, in reading Hammett’s introduction to the [1934] Modern Library edition, is his admission … or, anyway, claim … that he wrote the book without any plot outline or even vague idea of where he was headed.

That’s astonishing. But he’s a fiction writer and could be lying. Either that, or he had a hell of a subconscious pulling the strings.
      
JKP: Hammett wrote only one novel and a trio of short stories about Sam Spade. Had he not been enticed away to Hollywood and all but given up on composing fiction, do you believe he would have penned more Spade yarns? Was the protagonist interesting enough to him, or had he exhausted his use for that man called Spade?
      
MAC: That’s a hard call. The lack of enthusiasm that some see in the three Spade short stories might indicate Hammett’s disinterest in the character. But really, his disinterest came from other places—his drinking, the Hollywood and radio success making it unnecessary to write, the possibility he was secretly collaborating with Lillian Hellman.  The Hellman connection at least indicates the shift in his interest to more high-flown goals than writing mystery fiction.

If he had stayed in mystery-writing mode, I think he likely would have written more Spade novels. He wrote two Continental Op novels, didn’t he? And two more Thin Man screen stories—After the Thin Man and Another Thin Man.

JKP: Finally, who’s the woman artist Irvin Rodriguez portrays on his cover for Return of the Maltese Falcon? Or who do you think it is?
      
MAC: Absolutely no idea. I do think it’s a lovely cover, and hope it attracts readers.

The P.I. Sam That G.I. Joes Missed

During World War II, roughly 122 million lightweight paperback books were distributed to members of the U.S. military in an “audacious and revolutionary” campaign to bring entertainment and knowledge to U.S. soldiers stationed abroad. The publication of those compact, horizontally formatted Armed Services Editions of more than 1,200 works—fiction and non-fiction, biographies, poetry, and more—“became one of the Army’s best morale boosters,” Literary Hub recalled a couple of years back, “offering a bit of light during those dark days. It also helped shepherd in an era of paperback supremacy and create millions of voracious readers in the process.”

The books’ size made it handy for soldiers to “tuck them away somewhere and hopefully finish a book at a later time,” says Book Riot. “Books were shared amongst soldiers, and they were so popular that many men began requesting specific titles and genres.”

Authors well represented in the ASE collection included Robert Benchley, Joseph Conrad, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zane Grey, Jack London, H.P. Lovecraft, John O’Hara, W. Somerset Maugham, Edgar Allan Poe, Luke Short, George R. Stewart, Bram Stoker, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, and H.G. Wells. Also made available were mysteries by Erle Stanley Gardner, Frances and Richard Lockridge, John P. Marquand, Ngaio Marsh, Craig Rice, and others.

(Above) Field Notes’ edition of Hammett’s classic detective yarn.

One talented fictionist who did not make the cut, despite the popularity of his short stories and novels, was Dashiell Hammett. Could the volunteer advisory panel charged with selecting the works for servicemen have been squeamish about Hammett’s membership in the Communist Party? Whatever the reason, his was a notable exclusion.

But that wrong is finally being righted by American notebook maker Field Notes, which has lately brought to market an ASE-style edition of Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, featuring “the original text … as serialized in Black Mask magazine” in 1929. It even carries the promise on its front cover so familiar from the wartime releases: “This Is the Complete Book—Not a Digest.” Modern writer Kevin Guilfoile contributes an introduction to this edition. As the company’s Web site explains, “It’s the first new ASE since the program was ended in 1947.”

Field Notes is currently selling its pocket-size Maltese Falcon separately, for $18.95 (plus shipping), or as a bonus atop its newest three-pack seasonal offering of notebooks. Click here to order.

Between the issuance of Max Allan Collins’ Return of the Maltese Falcon and Poltroon Press’ handsome hardcover version of Hammett’s single Sam Spade novel—both coming out in early January—plus this new Armed Services Edition of Falcon, the occasion of Hammett’s best-known private eye tale falling into the public domain on January 1, 2026, is certainly being well celebrated!

That Darn Bird Again, With Bonuses

I have mentioned before that Max Allan Collins has an excellent new book due for release from Hard Case Crime on January 6, 2026. Titled Return of the Maltese Falcon, it is of course a sequel to Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon—his only novel featuring San Francisco private eye Sam Spade. But as it turns out, two occasional contributors to The Rap Sheet have an expanded edition of Hammett’s 1929 tale set for release on the very same day Collins’ yarn hits stores.

Expanded in what respect? Well, according to Northern California author Mark Coggins, creator of the August Riordan series, the hardcover version of The Maltese Falcon coming from Berkeley-based publisher Poltroon Press (shown at right) will feature not only the entirety of Hammett’s original story, but as a coda, a couple of Falcon sequels that Coggins produced and published recently in Eclectica Magazine. In the following note, he explains what motivated him to continue Spade’s adventures:

For a crime-fiction devotee like me, some stories never really end. They live in your head, the characters prowling the foggy streets of your imagination long after you’ve turned the final page. For me, and I suspect for many of you, Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon is chief among them. Sam Spade’s characterization of the black bird as “the stuff that dreams are made of” in the John Huston film is one of the all-time great last lines,* but it leaves a tantalizing question hanging in the air: What happened to the real falcon?

This year, I got the chance to answer that question for myself. When the copyright for Hammett’s masterpiece expired in January 2025, it felt like a door creaked open, inviting a new generation of writers to step into Spade’s world. I didn't hesitate. I sat down and penned a short story, “Mockingbird,” that picks up right where the novel left off, sending Spade back into the labyrinthine hunt for the genuine, jewel-encrusted bird. I’m happy to say the story found a home in Eclectica.

Writing new fiction in a world as richly realized as Hammett’s San Francisco is no small task. Authenticity is everything. My guiding star was Don Herron’s indispensable book, The Dashiell Hammett Tour. It’s a brilliant field guide to the city Hammett knew and wrote about.

To that I added some of my own research. Herron, for example, notes that the novel places gunman Floyd Thursby’s hotel on “Geary near Leavenworth” but doesn’t pinpoint a specific establishment. Armed with a 1928 San Francisco city directory, I went hunting. One establishment stood out as the most likely candidate: the Geary Inn Hotel at 725 Geary. Today, it’s called the Hotel Luz. I reached out to the current owner who told me that a writer who had been a tenant of his had independently come to the very same conclusion.

Once “Mockingbird” was finished, I didn’t let up. A second tale, “The Russian Egg,” followed immediately, continuing Spade’s quest. It was also published in Eclectica Magazine.

Beyond those Falcon follow-ups, Poltroon’s forthcoming edition will include Coggins’ black-and-white photographs of modern-day San Francisco, introducing each chapter. And the shot used on the cover? It’s of the alley where Spade’s partner, Miles Archer, was murdered. “One of the marvels of Hammett’s work,” says Coggins, “is how tangible his city remains. You can still stand outside Spade’s apartment building at 891 Post, look up at his office windows in the old Hunter-Dulin Building at 111 Sutter, and even walk into John’s Grill on Ellis Street and order the same meal he ate: ‘chops, baked potato, and sliced tomatoes.’ My photos will capture these enduring locations, bridging the nearly 100-year gap between his world and ours.”

Randal S. Brandt, who writes The Rap Sheet’s “Book Into Film” column and is curator of the California Detective Fiction Collection at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, has prepared a new introduction for this edition. And the dust jacket will include a “mapback” showing crime-scene locations from both Hammett’s novel and Coggins’ stories.

All in all, this sounds like a volume that belongs on my shelves—right next to Collins’ Return of the Maltese Falcon.

* The actual last line is “Huh?” spoken by Detective Sergeant Tom Polhaus in response to Spade’s remark.

Of Spade, Scarlet, and Spies

• Back in July, San Francisco Bay-area author Mark Coggins published a short story in Eclectica magazine titled “Mockingbird,” which revitalized Dashiell Hammett’s best-recognized shamus, Sam Spade, and sent him chasing once more after the elusive bejeweled Maltese falcon. Now, Coggins is back with “The Russian Egg,” appearing in the October/November edition of Eclectica. Picking up where “Mockingbird” left off, it finds the “hard and shifty” Spade being employed by Rhea Gutman, supposedly the daughter of the late and corpulent criminal Casper Gutman, one of the principal antagonists in Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (1930). She wants him to find a different missing treasure: a Fabergé egg, once the property of Russian Dowager Empress Maria, which, like the falcon, may also have been smuggled into California, and may have drawn the covetous notice of real-life former U.S. senator James D. Phelan. Coggins’ two yarns—best read back to back—have Spade being threatened and shot at by guns; taking what turns out to be a deadly ferry ride; dining on broiled sturgeon steak with mushroom sauce at the now-famous Tadich Grill; and rolling far too many cigarettes to ensure his continued health. They provide a welcome opportunity to renew our acquaintance with a private eye who made a scant four appearances in Hammett’s fiction—in Falcon and three subsequent short stories.

• By the way, note that the “pale and petite” Rhea Gutman makes an early appearance, too, in Max Allan Collins’ Return of the Maltese Falcon, due out from Hard Case Crime in January 2026. I already have a copy of that 224-page novel, but haven’t yet read it, preferring to wait until one day (soon) when I can truly savor the experience. Meanwhile, I’m thinking it might be fun to re-read Joe Gores’ Spade & Archer, his 2009 prequel to The Maltese Falcon.

• One more Spade-related item: In his blog, Davy Crockett’s Almanack of Mystery, Adventure, and the Wild West, Evan Lewis features a program guide by one Elizabeth McLeod that recounts how Hammett’s “blond Satan” of a gumshoe became an old-time radio star.

• Season 6 of the Victorian-era sleuth series Miss Scarlet—formerly Miss Scarlet and the Duke—starring Kate Phillips and Tom Durant-Pritchard, will make its broadcast debut as part of PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! lineup on Sunday, January 11, 2026 (though PBS Passport members can begin streaming its half-dozen episodes on December 7). The Masterpiece Web site offers a few “first-look images” to tantalize the show’s longtime fans.

• From now through April 6, 2026, Oxford, England’s Bodleian Libraries are hosting “Tradecraft,” an exhibition based on the late author John le Carré’s private archive that “offers unique insights into the working methods of the writer who shaped the modern spy novel. ‘Tradecraft’ is a word le Carré used to describe the techniques of espionage, but it might also be applied to his own skilled craft as a writer and social commentator.” Among the materials spanning le Carré’s life are “research, drafts, and corrections for his novels, non-fiction, and adaptations, as well as personal correspondence. Highlights include annotated manuscripts of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Constant Gardener, and The Little Drummer Girl; previously unseen family photographs; original sketches and watercolour paintings; and letters to fans and friends.”

• For Spybrary, Shane Whaley interviews professor Federico Varese and Dr. Jessica Douthwaite, who co-curated “Tradecraft.” A write-up on the Web site explains that “They explore how the exhibit reveals le Carré’s working methods, personal life, and research habits. From manuscript drafts and scribbles on hotel stationery to his mother’s abandoned suitcase, the conversation explores how le Carré meticulously researched his books, how he conceives characters like George Smiley, and what the curators hope visitors take away.”

• Author talks worth checking out: Sarah DiVello fires questions at Walter Mosley about his latest book, Gray Dawn; Jeffrey James Higgins chats with Reed Farrel Coleman (Sleepless City); Chicago Review of Books’ Lori Rader-Day quizzes Jake Hinkson on the subject of his brand-new novel of “dirtbag decisions,” You Will Never See Me; and with Crimespree Magazine’s Elise Cooper, Julia Kelly discusses her Evelyne Redfern series (A Dark and Deadly Journey, etc.).

• Finally, congratulations are in order for two blogs prominent on my radar. “Puzzle Doctor” Steve Barge celebrates 15 years of helming In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, while Peter Hanson counts the same number of years writing Every ’70s Movie.

Short Subjects

• Lambda Literary, a self-described champion of LGBTQ+ books and their authors, has released its list of finalists for the 2025 Lambda Literary Awards, aka the “Lammys.” There are 26 brackets of contenders, but here are the five titles vying for designation this year as Best LGBTQ+ Mystery:

— Charlotte Illes Is Not a Teacher, by Katie Siegel (Kensington)
— One of Us Knows, by Alyssa Cole (Morrow)
— Rough Pages, by Lev AC Rosen (Tor)
— Rough Trade, by Katrina Carrasco (MCD)
— The Night of Baba Yaga, by Akira Otani (Soho Crime)

All of the winners are expected to be honored during a virtual ceremony on Saturday, October 4.

• I attended only a single summer camp during the years of my youth, a week-long Boy Scout outing that I remember mostly for its mosquitoes and invariably malodorous outhouses. (Believe me, I searched for one that didn’t make my eyes water every time I creaked open its door, but without success!) Other children, however, have apparently had more enjoyable or at least more interesting experiences than my own, which is why there are now sufficient summer-camp mysteries to justify Janet Rudolph compiling their titles in this post. I think that of those works, the only one I’ve tackled is Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods. And if that tale had existed for me to read as a tyke, I never would have gone to camp even once!

• Has the quarterly crime-fiction journal Mysterical-E folded? I just noticed that the last issue available online is dated “Summer 2022.”

• Screenwriter Steven Wright (A Thousand Blows, All the Light We Cannot See, Peaky Blinders) has been recruited to script Amazon’s first James Bond film. This announcement, notes The Spy Command, “follows Amazon MGM hiring Denis Villeneuve in June to direct its first Bond entry. In March, Amazon MGM installed David Heyman and Amy Pascal as the new Bond producers. Amazon gained creative control of the Bond movie franchise early this year from Eon Productions.”

• Meanwhile, The Book Bond brings word that Kim Sherwood’s third and last Double O spy thriller, due for publication (at least in Great Britain so far) in May 2026, will be titled Hurricane Room.

• This item comes from In Reference to Murder:

Golden Age authors Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers (the Lord Peter Wimsey series), and G.K. Chesterton (the Father Brown series) are to be brought to life in a TV series titled The Detection Club from the BBC and BritBox International. Produced by BBC Studios Drama Productions, the show is understood to be taking a “mystery-of-the-week”-style approach with fictional versions of Christie, Sayers, and Chesterton set as the main characters solving crimes each episode. Formed nearly 100 years ago, the elusive and exclusive Detection Club met regularly as its members dined and helped each other with technical aspects of their writing. As well as meeting, they also adhered to [clergyman and writer Ronald] Knox’s Commandments, which instructed that a reader of their books must always be given a fair chance at guessing the guilty party. Casting is said to be underway.

While that write-up makes it sound rather like the Detection Club is a historical relic, it is fact still active, with author Martin Edwards serving as its current president.

• The Stiletto Gumshoe’s C.J. Thomas draws my attention to a fine piece, printed earlier this year in a Montana lifestyle magazine, that he says recalls “how these things called ‘noir’ and ‘hard-boiled’ didn’t begin in the back alleys of New York or the mean streets of L.A., but more as ‘rural noir’ with Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest back in 1929.” You can enjoy that full essay here.

• Did you know Netflix has adapted S.A. Cosby’s 2023 novel, All the Sinners Bleed, as a nine-episode TV series? The show is to begin filming this coming November, with the finished product to debut in 2027.

• And here’s a trailer for Lynley, the new BBC/BritBox adaptation of Elizabeth George’s best-selling Inspector Lynley crime series. Starring Leo Suter and Sofia Barclay, the show is an updated version of the 2001-2008 BBC One drama The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, which featured Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small. Lynley will premiere on BritBox come Thursday, September 4.

Yet Another Spade Showing

We last heard from longtime friend of the site Mark Coggins, the creator of series private eye August Riordan, earlier this year, after his surprising acquisition of Raymond Chandler’s Olivetti Studio 44 typewriter. But he contacted us again this week, to say he has a new short story available that connects him to yet another prominent developer of American detective fiction:

The Maltese Falcon [1930], by Dashiell Hammett, entered the public domain on January 1st of this year. This means that other authors are free to take the character of Sam Spade and the story of the Falcon and run with it. In fact, crime-fiction publisher Hard Case Crime has already announced plans to release Return of the Maltese Falcon, by Max Allan Collins, in January of 2026. The new book promises to pick up “where legendary author Dashiell Hammett left off, telling the story of iconic private eye Sam Spade and the quest for the priceless Maltese Falcon.”

I, like Collins, have long had a fascination with the book, and I, too, have been interested in trying my hand at a Sam Spade story. I’m pleased to announce that my attempt at such a story, “Mockingbird,” has been published in the July/August 2025 issue of Eclectica Magazine. You can read it here.

Collins and I share the same middle name (mine being spelled “Alan”) and have the same initials (MAC). Even our last names are pretty damn similar, so perhaps it’s fitting we both took a whack at answering the question, “What happen to the Falcon?”

Mark mentions that he is currently working on another Spade investigation—“a sequel to a sequel, if you will”—tentatively titled “The Russian Egg.” We look forward to reading that tale as well, perhaps while we await the release of Collins’ Return.

Thursday Trifles

• The 100th anniversary of Elmore Leonard’s birth will be October 11 of this year. Despite the fact that the author died in 2013 at age 87, this coming centenary provides an ideal excuse to reissue some of his best-remembered works. As Barry Forshaw notes in Crime Time, publisher Penguin will bring out new editions of Swag, The Switch, and Rum Punch in June, with more works to follow in its Penguin Modern Classics Crime series. (Hat tip to In Reference to Murder.)

• Dashiell Hammett’s time spent as a soldier in Alaska is not a subject with which most readers are familiar. Which is undoubtedly why historian David Reamer looked into that story for the latest entry in his weekly series for the Anchorage Daily News.

• In CrimeReads, author Danielle Teller (Forged) makes the case that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby was a con artist. “He seeks cheat codes for acquiring wealth,” she explains, “and takes on a false persona at a young age ..., and he displays many of the narcissistic and psychopathic features associated with con artists, including glib charm, grandiosity, need for admiration, impulsivity, egotism, manipulation, and of course, a willingness to lie.”

• Fictionist and genre historian Martin Edwards has published what he says is his “first ever obituary written for a national newspaper”: a choice remembrance of Peter Lovesey for The Guardian.

• In a new pair of posts, Paul Vidich (The Poet’s Game) first celebrates the career of now 95-year-old spy novelist Len Deighton, and then selects “six novels to highlight Deighton’s considerable talent.”

• Another Miami Vice movie? I hope this one, to be directed by Joseph Kosinski (Spiderhead, F1), will be better than Michael Mann’s underdeveloped 2006 filmed based on his 1980s TV series Miami Vice.

• Reporter and animal rights activist Cleveland Amory spent 13 years (1963-1976) as a television critic for TV Guide magazine. I remember reading and often enjoying his columns (which I have occasionally drawn quotes from for The Rap Sheet). But Amory, himself, did not always enjoy the subjects of said critiques. A case in point: his “scorchingly bad [1965] review of the cult-classic television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” which Ben Bolden posted recently in his blog.

• This coming Sunday, May 11, Americans will be celebrating Mother’s Day. Time again for Janet Rudolph to update her list of crime and mystery novels linked to that annual holiday. Kathi Daley’s The Mother's Day Mishap, Jane Haddam’s Murder Superior, and Selma Eichler’s Murder Can Upset Your Mother are among the many titles (novels and short-story collections) mentioned. More here.

• Finally, here are two interviews worth your attention: Sarah Weinman talks with Kate Summerscale, author of the new-in-the-States true-crime history The Peepshow, which revisits the bizarre case of London serial killer Reg Christie; and Jeri Westerson chats up audiobook narrator Noah James Butler, whom she calls the “Man of a Thousand Voices.”

“Everybody Has Something to Conceal”

Seven months after news broke that author Max Allan Collins was composing a sequel to The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett’s genre-defining 1930 private-eye novel, the cover art for Collins’ Return of the Maltese Falcon has been released by Hard Case Crime.

This book is scheduled for publication in January 2026.

A plot synopsis says that Return “brings closure to this crime classic, reuniting all the surviving members of the original cast alongside femme fatales, crooked collectors, and greedy gangsters for one more thrilling, deadly chase through the streets, wharves, morgues, bars, and back alleys of 1920s San Francisco—and finally answers the question, Whatever became of the Maltese falcon …?”

Whose Town Is It Anyway?

By Mark Coggins
Raymond Chandler, who along with Dashiell Hammett perfected the American hard-boiled detective story, is best known for his well-regarded novels set in Los Angeles, The Big Sleep (1939) and The Long Goodbye (1953) among them. Hammett, on the other hand, made his bones with the masterworks he wrote and set in San Francisco, The Maltese Falcon (1930) being the most famous.

Given the close association of Chandler with L.A. and Hammett with San Francisco, would you be surprised to learn that Chandler lived and worked in “the city that knows how” before Hammett? It’s true.

Upon Chandler’s return to the United States, following his service with the Canadian Army in France during World War I, he lived in San Francisco in 1919 and worked briefly at two banks—the Anglo and London Paris National Bank and the Bank of British North America. That predates Hammett’s arrival in town by two years.

(Above) Anglo and London Paris National Bank building in 1981.

While researching Chandler’s time in San Francisco, I learned that the Bank of British North America was located at 260 California Street in 1918, although by 1919 it had apparently merged with the Bank of Montreal.* (The property, the Newhall Building, now contains a Citibank branch.) I more readily found the location of the Anglo and London Paris National Bank, not far away at the intersection of Sutter and Sansome streets. This is currently home to One Sansome Street, a 42-story office tower, and the conservatory of the new building is actually the façade of the old Anglo and London structure (built in 1910). The original cornice and columned archways, in particular, were preserved to bound the glass-roofed courtyard/conservatory.

Given the Anglo and London’s status as “historically significant,” the developers were required to preserve more than just the building’s granite-clad façade prior to breaking ground for the new skyscraper back in the early 1980s. They documented the appearance and design of the former bank as completely as possible, and the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) of the Library of Congress retains that documentation, including original blueprints and photographs taken before demolition.

The accompanying report provides background on the structure’s prolific Mexican-born American designer:

The Anglo and London Paris National Bank was designed by Albert Pissis in 1908 … He was among the chief exponents of what was then called “modern architecture” with its structure derived from the new-invented steel frame, and its imagery inspired by the buildings of ancient Rome and Renaissance …

Many of Pissis’ most noted works survive in San Francisco. The Emporium (835-865 Market Street) and the James Flood Building (870-898 Market Street) were his two largest commissions.

Since the publication of that HABS report, the Emporium (erected originally in 1896, but rebuilt in 1908 after the city’s great earthquake and fire) has been razed to make room for a one-million-square-foot addition to the San Francisco Centre. Yet a portion of Pissis’ work survives once more. The building’s dome was retained to cap the new structure through an impressive feat of hydraulic engineering.

(Right) Flood Building, photo by Mark Coggins.

Just across Market Street, Pissis’ other large commission—the Flood Building—stands today looking much as it did in 1904 when it opened. One of the early tenants of the building was the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. And one of the employees of that agency was none other than Dashiell Hammett. In 1915 he had joined “the Pinks” as a clerk, working first in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, and later being assigned to the San Francisco office.

All of which leads us to a hard-boiled epiphany: Hammett and Chandler, the two masters of the American detective story, both worked in San Francisco buildings designed by Albert Pissis!

I’ll leave you with a shot of the interior of the Anglo and London Bank. Can you imagine Raymond Chandler there in 1919 waiting for you behind the teller window as you rush in to deposit your weekly paycheck? Maybe he’d greet you with one of his famous Chandlerisms:

“If you’re looking for trouble, I come from where they make it.”

Interior of the Anglo and London Paris National Bank building.

* This information was updated thanks to help from Randal and Maria Brandt.