I have, of course, seen the movie numerous times but had never read the novel until I got it for my birthday. Working my way through my stack of books waiting to be read, I got at The Maltese Falcon in the fall. And I enjoyed it.
The Maltese Falcon is nominally a murder mystery but is really the search for a MacGuffin (an object which drives the plot). In this case, it is the coveted falcon statuette. To be honest, the strength of this book is not the plot which I find to be overly convoluted; it has many twists and turns without ever getting very deep. The attraction of the novel- for me, anyway- is in the characters.
All of the baddies in The Maltese Falcon have very different characters; besides Brigid, there's Gutman with his refined accent and habits, Cairo with his oily, effeminate fastidiousness, and Wilmer, the muscle who thinks he's tougher than he actually is. Despite their very different characters, however, in the end they are shown to be all the same: grubby thieves desperately doing whatever it takes in order to claw their way to what they want.
Of course, it's very hard to discuss the novel without mentioning the movie of The Maltese Falcon, because it's so well known. In my next post, I'll discuss the similarities and differences between the two, as well as some final thoughts on the book.