Return of the Maltese Falcon

 

I read Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon" several decades ago when I was younger and didn't care for it much. I really tried to like it, after all, it was set in San Francisco, a city that I've always been fascinated by, and was deliciously noir. I'm willing to give it another chance now that I'm older, I just don't have time right now. 

All that is to say: I don't remember the book very well. I also tried to watch the Humphrey Bogart version movie several times and just couldn't get into it. So I wasn't terribly surprised that I had a hard time getting through this book, even though I like Collins and have enjoyed his other stories. 

"Return of the Maltese Falcon" picks up where Hammett's book left off. PI Sam Spade is contacted by multiple interested parties who would like him to find the fabled gold and jewel encrusted statue. Everyone's lying, including Spade, people are getting killed right and left, but in the end Spade untangles everything and there's a somewhat happy ending. The book picked up towards the end, the last fifty pages or so were engrossing, but it was a bit of a slog to get there.