The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

<p>A landmark of hard-boiled detective fiction, first published in 1930. San Francisco private eye Sam Spade is pulled into a web of double-crosses, murder, and obsession when a mysterious woman and a priceless statuette walk into his office. Dashiell Hammett's terse, unsentimental style set the template for the noir genre that followed.</p>