The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet
b"We are joined by the crime novelist Mark Billingham to discuss his favourite book, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. First serialised in Black Mask magazine in 1929 and published the following year in book form by Alfred A. Knopf, it is widely considered to have inaugurated the hard-boiled genre of detective fiction. It introduces the tough, abrasive and morally ambiguous private detective, Sam Spade, who sent Dorothy Parker \\u2018mooning about in a daze of love such as I had not known for any character in literature since I encountered Sir Lancelot.\\u2019 The labyrinthine plot turns around the eponymous falcon of the title \\u2013 a statuette so valuable that three people are killed in the search to retrieve it. But, as the discussion reveals, it is not the plot that has made the book a classic. Hammett\\u2019s San Francisco, filled with sharp-tongued dames, wise-cracking gumshoes, cops on the take and thugs on the lam, spawned a whole genre of noir novels and movies \\u2013 including John Huston\\u2019s classic adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor in 1941. In 1995, the Mystery Writers of America voted The Maltese Falcon the third greatest crime novel of all time. In this episode, illuminated by Mark\\u2019s own long experience of writing in the genre, we try to find out why.\\nTimings (after any advert's):\\n08:43 - The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet\\n* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at\\xa0uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted\\xa0where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.\\n*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at\\xa0www.patreon.com/backlisted\\n* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit\\xa0backlisted.fm\\n Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices"