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A review by incarnationblues
Spade & Archer by Joe Gores
3.0
(The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon)
Having not read The Maltese Falcon (although I think I saw the movie a decade ago) I'm (again!) going to be a bit out of the water when it comes to reviewing this thing in the proper context. I mean, in addition to filling in some of the background for the aforementioned book, this is supposed to be written in the same style, right?
I'm going to assume TMF has an incredible array of historical factoids about San Francisco that have no bearing on the story. I mean, beyond enhancing the setting. I guess. Or something. Ima be honest here: I skimmed those parts because BORING.
The book was a fast read. Structurally it was built that way. Everything just moves really fast. Sam Spade is a god damned superhero.
No, seriously. I'm hesitant to draw generalizations about the shape of the genre as represented by a modern attempted representation... but that never stopped anyone, right? So yeah, Spade is a superhero in the same vein as Sherlock Holmes. Dude is like... he don't miss nothing, you know? He never walks away empty handed from ANYONE he interviews. Everyone has something useful to him. Does he ever bark up the wrong tree? NOPE.
Which is all cool in a hyper masculine sort of way, I guess. But since we don't really see his internals at all one has to wonder if he has any kind of self doubt (beyond the apparent self loathing that leads him to fall into womanizing - triggered by a fractional affair with a murdered woman (before she gets murdered, natch), which really kind of... makes no sense at all BUT maybe it did given the setting. Who knows?). I guess I like my heroes a little more fallible? Product of the modern age maybe.
THREE AND A ...NAH, JUST THREE. STARS THAT IS.
I'll go back and read The Maltese Falcon at some point.
Having not read The Maltese Falcon (although I think I saw the movie a decade ago) I'm (again!) going to be a bit out of the water when it comes to reviewing this thing in the proper context. I mean, in addition to filling in some of the background for the aforementioned book, this is supposed to be written in the same style, right?
I'm going to assume TMF has an incredible array of historical factoids about San Francisco that have no bearing on the story. I mean, beyond enhancing the setting. I guess. Or something. Ima be honest here: I skimmed those parts because BORING.
The book was a fast read. Structurally it was built that way. Everything just moves really fast. Sam Spade is a god damned superhero.
No, seriously. I'm hesitant to draw generalizations about the shape of the genre as represented by a modern attempted representation... but that never stopped anyone, right? So yeah, Spade is a superhero in the same vein as Sherlock Holmes. Dude is like... he don't miss nothing, you know? He never walks away empty handed from ANYONE he interviews. Everyone has something useful to him. Does he ever bark up the wrong tree? NOPE.
Which is all cool in a hyper masculine sort of way, I guess. But since we don't really see his internals at all one has to wonder if he has any kind of self doubt (beyond the apparent self loathing that leads him to fall into womanizing - triggered by a fractional affair with a murdered woman (before she gets murdered, natch), which really kind of... makes no sense at all BUT maybe it did given the setting. Who knows?). I guess I like my heroes a little more fallible? Product of the modern age maybe.
THREE AND A ...NAH, JUST THREE. STARS THAT IS.
I'll go back and read The Maltese Falcon at some point.