I've just read this book a second time and am making a point of recommending it to my friends and to everybody reading here. This is a very crazy novel. In fact it's not so much a novel as a satire of novels. The author gets you interested in the story but there's some kind of gag on every page, so Kelly's book manages to mock every novel-writing convention, in the process of mocking itself. "The Maltese Falcon" is lampooned, as are H.P. Lovecraft's, and to a lesser extent Dickens's work specifically, but the humor ranges widely beyond just these targets. It's sharp but underlyingly good-natured humor. I'll never forget these patently ripe characters: a Sam Spade type, Jake Stalker, who seems to be coming out of the closet, Lucretia Faversham, elderly dowager, in search of rejuvenation while revelling in all the common vices, Veronica Volupturini, globe-trotting golddigger, Haggie the gin-swilling receptionist, Rastus Reilly himself, whose mere description is hilariously unforgettable, and a larger congregation of strangely loveable misfits Kelly describes bluntly as "lowlife swine." They're rather sweet swine, though, and that's part of what makes them funny. One character's impossibly long surname evokes conversational byplay that puts Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" to shame: this alone would make the book worth its price, but the laughs keep coming, from every direction. Bizarre characterization is certainly a strong point. The setting is Boston, Massachusetts, and a treasure-hunting cruise from there to the Caribbean, in the 1930s. Pacing is leisurely at first but the story builds to an adventurous conclusion. The tone can best be described as ridiculous. The writing style parodies numerous styles, as suggested by the subtitle, and manages to do this not just effectively, but fluidly as well: Kelly is a genuinely talented writer. The plot is simply a framework for laughter. The good guys, led by old lady Faversham and her hired gun Jake Stalker, have found out there is an ancient Secret of Eternal Youth, and they're chasing after it, hotly pursued by a fat and skinny pair of archly evil bad guys. I said this was a very crazy book. So if you like Crazy you'll love it. I did, enough to read it all over again, six months after my first reading, and I picked up on jokes I'd missed the first time. A+ for humor.

I was *beyond* pleasantly surprised by Rastus Reilly. Steve takes no prisoners when he parodies Laural and Hardy, Mark Twain, Stephen King, HP Lovecraft, and countless others. This book is funny from page one through the end, and I found myself wishing for more once it was finished! Of course, I drink a lot of beer, so what do I know?

I'll be watching for future releases from Steve Kelly, hope he lives for awhile and doesn't die of liver disorder.

I'm a fan of Stephen King and I had just started reading H.P. Lovecraft's classic horror stories when I came across this unusual novel and decided to give it a try. First I'm going to warn readers who don't like completely crazy humor that they will not like Kelly's book. I do like crazy nut humor so I loved "Rastus Reilly." It's well written it's insane and it's a hoot. Knowing a little Lovecraft will help you enjoy this horror and mystery satire. In some parts of the book Kelly satires the Lovecraft writing style very well and obviously with affection. But you don't really have to know Lovecraft. You do have to be a little crazy like me to enjoy a novel as plain silly as this one. I liked it enough to write my first Amazon review and give this book the top rating but only for nutty humor fans.

Great book! If you like Dashiell Hammett, this is the book to read. Excellent descriptive passages.

Dashiell Hammett's novels have fascinating mystery plots and the essential elements of film noir: dangerous dames, wise-cracking "ops" (= operative = P.I.), cagey crime orgasnisers, and trigger-happy "muggs".

Hammett's novels include The Maltese Falcon (#3) and The Thin Man(#5), which are great films but they are missing some of the intrigue of the real stories. For instance, there's another angle of Sam Spade involving Iva Archer that doesn't quite make it to the film version . . . .

The Red Harvest (#1) reveals shocking corruption in city politics as the Continental Op (literally) wades through bootleg liquor and tries to keep track of the soaring body count.

The Dain Curse (#2) is a confusing compound of drug use, a religious cult, and a family's vicious criminal record. It isn't a neat, fictionalised detective story, but rather the slough of deceit Hammett must have seen while working for Pinkerton.

The Glass Key (#4) also deals with city-level political corruption, but there's another message: think of trying to use a glass key . . . .

When fortifying myself for a six hour layover and a trans-Atlantic flight, I stumbled upon this book quite by accident, but I couldn't have made a better choice. Hammett's novels make excellent reading: interesting plots, clever wording and some of those "lines" film noir can't do without. I can't resist giving an example "line" (from The Glass Key):

"'A copper found you crawling on all fours up the middle of Colman Street at three in the morning leaving a trail of blood behind you.'

'I think of funny things to do,' Ned Beaumont said."

If you can go to San Francisco and take Don Herron's Hammett walking tour...do it! I promise you will be entertained, informed and exhausted (remember, SF is a city of hills.) Don is really an expert on the life and literary merits of Dashiell Hammett, especially the works he produced while a resident of this beautiful city by the bay. Over the many years that Don has guided this tour, he has uncovered (and willingly shares) many fascinating facts and factoids about Hammett and 1920s San Francisco. If your travels never take you there, however, this book is a worthy substitute. Beautifully produced and well-written, Don's book is perfect for the armchair traveller and any hard-boiled mystery buff.

Hammett based his private eye stories on his own adventures as a private eye and invented the American private eye stories. But his life changed when he met Hellmann and during the red scare he suffered for what he believed in. William F. Nolan examines his complex life and what made Hammett an excellent writer and a tragic figure.

My two favorites in this collection are The Thin Man and The Maltese Falcon. I love these hard-boiled detective novels doubly for their sheer entertainment and their place in history. If you want a fascinating read to go allong with this collection, get The Perfect Murder: A Study In Detection by David Lehman. It will clue you into these novels and life. These classic American Novels by Hammett are about to explode in historical research as these novels create an important link in America from WWII to our morality.

Overshadowed by the always excellent Donald Westlake was the vampire mystery, "Upon Reflection" by the always delightful Elliott Capon.

I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of this book. If you're a Hammett fan, it's worth investing in. Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key and The Thin Man are gathered in this real cloth-bound book. The book stays open, flat. It even has a satin ribbon bound in to hold your place. It sounds a bit strange to gush over the bookmaking, but I think this volume is a worthy container for the classic content inside.

Hammett was the best writer ever to take to crime fiction. All his writing is lean and elegant.

The Dain Curse (his first novel) is not very good, but the other 4 are superb. The Maltese Falcon is even better than the Bogart film. Hammett's feeling for mood and atmosphere shows in that these books have inspired great movies: The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man series, Yojimbo (from Red Harvest).

I have reviewed each of these books separately. Having them all together in one volume is invaluable. And reading these consecutively is hardly boring, because there's a world of difference between them.

RED HARVEST featuring the Continental Op is a real romp through a completely corrupt town which gets what's coming to it because a corrupt police official makes the middle aged fat man protagonist mad. There's an underlying theme of corruption as a true poison.

THE DAIN CURSE is again the Continental Op, and here you see glimpses of a tender side to a character who is basically completely self controlled. And in this, you see the very weak female character turn into an admirably strong woman.

THE MALTESE FALCON is of course the true classic, a study of greed and deception. Sam Spade's story of a character named Flitcraft gives the reader the author's perspective on the randomness of life.

THE GLASS KEY gives a sleazy view of politics and makes a couple of points about friendship.

THE THIN MAN appears lightweight after the first four, but a second reading reveals a portrait of a very able person who allowed passion to leave his life, and is slowly going down the drain.

Crime fans will especially love this collection, but there is a whole lot of value concerning human nature and the framework of society here.

I never knew that Hammett could be beyond hardboiled and noir. These stories have O'Henry like twists to them and some really funny prose. And they're long enough to get some development but short enough to finish in a normal sitting. It's fun.

During the years of radio drama, Dashell Hammett's Nick Charles and Sam Spade had their own weekly radio shows, and movie flings. But one series based on a Dashell Hammett character was puzzling: "The Fat Man". He was named J. Maxwell Smart, weighed 240 lb., and of course was one tough character. Yet, you'll never find him under that name in any Hammett story. The radio, tv, & movie character was, in fact, based on the nameless Continental Op.

Truly, he is the most interesting of Hammett's series characters. He is tough, ethical according to his code, and keeps his true emotions buried under the toughness and the physical bulk. He is a cynic, one who assumes that each person involved is undoubtedly lying. On the occasions that a female character makes a play for him, he assumes that she has an angle. And he, in turn, formulates his own lies which have the effect of bringing out the truth. There are times that he is as surprised at the outcome as the reader is.

Hammett is skillful in the way he keeps the op in character, and the reader needs to be alert to catch some of the subtleties such as a restrained sense of humor when the crooks trap themselves by thinking he's after them when he's completely unaware of what they've done; a buried feeling of remorse when a client is murdered because the op had the wrong assumption; a decision not to unnecessarily involve an erring wife who's resigned herself to having her infidelity revealed.

These stories indeed have literary value while being engrossing crime stories. If you enjoy today's tough police detectives such as Harry Bosch, you will find these far earlier stories engrossing.

This is the first Dashiell Hammett book I've read. It's actually a collection of short stories revolving around the exploits of the Continental Op, a nameless private dick who works for the Continental Detective Agency. The Op is a hard-nosed, intelligent guy who always cracks his cases, along with a few heads. Hammett originally wrote these as serials for magazines way back in the 1920's. That was one of the things that surprised me about these stories. I couldn't believe they were written so long ago. The edginess and violence seems much more modern. These stories could easily have been written around the time that Raymond Chandler was banging out his Marlowe stories (during the 1950's). You cannot help but like the Op. He's sarcastic and smart and operates on his own code of justice. He's the kind of guy you would want to have around if you were in trouble.

All of the stories are good, but some are better than others. The best story, in my humble opinion, concerned a jewel heist gone bad in which the Op ends up in a gun battle in a dark apartment. The bodies stack up quickly in this one. Other stories involve a trip to Mexico, nine "clews" that don't add up, and a theft that the Op accidentally stumbles upon. All of the stories involve murder and mayhem. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how the stories would end while I was reading them, but Hammett always seems to make it end in an unexpected way. The writing style is quick and cool, with many neat metaphors I've come to expect from noir writings.

The introduction to this collection is pretty useless and boring. I recommended skipping it and going right to the meat. This is noir. Who needs an introduction? Read!

"The Maltese Falcon" is better known to most of the public these days from the movie -- which is as close to a perfect adaptation as any movie has ever gotten. The novel is just as wonderful, if not more. There is a certain muscular quality to Hammett's prose that is mirrored by Huston's graphics, but Hammett has to be read to see what marvelous sentences he constructed. There are a few significant differences from the movie: Sam Spade in the book is described as a "blond Satan," and the heroic quality that Humphrey Bogart projected is darker in the novel. There is a long story, told while Brigid and Sam wait, about a man named Flitcraft who disappears; the story is central to understanding Sam's view of humanity. And there is Gutman's daughter, who is cut completely from the film. There are other minor differences, but taken all in all, the movie served the book well. Fans of the movie will love the novel, and fans of the mystery and detective genre who haven't read Dashiell Hammett are missing the genesis of the hard-boiled detective. An outstanding read!

Why should anyone read THE MALTESE FALCON?

The classic Bogart flick is a near-perfect redition of Dashiell Hammett's tough-guy dialogue. Director John Huston cast the film so well, that it's impossible to imagine the characters any other way. And in all its twists and turns, the movie captures every nuance of Hammett's plot, and even adds to the mix.

So, again: Why should anyone read THE MALTESE FALCON? The same reason why the movie is so watchable time after time; If you haven't read it, you don't know how good it is, and if you have read it, it's so good, you can't wait to read it again.

In THE MALTESE FALCON, Hammett nails every element of the detective genre so precisely, so superbly, that it's a wonder anyone ever tried to write another detective novel after him. There are simply none better, a detective novel that goes beyond its pulp roots, and enters the realm of 'capital L' Literature.

The plot, for those three people who are unaware, is as follows; Detective Sam Spade has unwittingly become a pawn in a bizarre game of chess. After his partner Miles is killed, he finds himself immersed in a convoluted plot involving a double-dealing moll, a sly fat man, a creepy small man, and a treasured statue of a bird that, if it exists, is worth unimaginable riches. But Spade is unwilling to be used in such a fashion, and starts to set himself up as a player in the scheme, all the while trying madly to figure out exactly what he should do.

I have always believed, in the best of the genre, that the actual plot comes second to the characters, and FALCON is no exception. Hammett's Spade is a remarkable resourceful character, living by a code that even he may not truly believe in. The characters of Gutman, Cairo, Brigid, and Wilmar are by turns despicable, evil, comical, and touching. Spade may be the driving force, but Hammett knows that Heaven is in the details; not one minor character is spared his sharp eye for character and ear for dialogue.

But Hammett does not skimp on the plot, either. He is well aware of what Alfred Hitchcock named the 'MacGuffin"; the one object that motivates the characters. It doesn't matter whether or not the reader believes in it, it is only important that the characters believe. Hammett knows this, and uses the bird to unmask the evils that men do, the depths to which people will sink for greed, Spade included. They morally descend into murder, betrayal, and a surprising amount of sex (that the movie simply could not show, considering the age it was made in).

But why is THE MALTESE FALCON so good? There are many other sterling examples out there, from Raymond Chander's FAREWELL MY LOVELY (a favorite of mine), to Walter Mosley's WHITE BUTTERFLY. But FALCON has that one elusive quality that will keep a reader coming back for more. I wish I knew what that was. I personally believe it is Hammett's understanding of the human condition, of the many contradictions that make up an individual. To use Spade as an example, Hammett has created a character who is cruel, and hard-headed, and greedy, and self-serving. Only a man who knows what a person is capable of could ever attempt to make someone like that the hero.

P.S. Incidentally, unlike the otherwise perfect casting in the movie, Spade does not resemble Humphrey Bogart in the slightest. He is a tall, hulking figure, with thinning blond hair and sharp, angular features, often described as a 'blond Satan'. But it is remarkable that, despite this, Bogart's portrayal is so note-perfect that you can't help but picture him anyway.

The best mystery novel ever! Dashiell Hammett's story "The Maltese Falcon" creates such suspense and interest for the reader, you may have to take a few days off work to finish it. You are taken on twists and turns throughout the story. Trying to figure out who's side the seductive Brigid O'Shaughnessy is on can be like guessing what came first the chicken or the egg. The main character Sam Spade is the classic private eye. A man who doesn't back down from any man, and doesn't back away from any women. The Maltese Falcon is described as such a treasure that you have no problem believing that it is indeed "A treasure worth killing for". As the story unfolds new characters reveal themselves, all interested in treasure. Alliances are formed and then broken. You never know who will betray who next. This book was rated as one of top 100 books of this century. Once I read it I was convinced it belong there. The greatest mystery novel is the Maltese Falcon. I Like to Eat Paper