Okay, first of all, I will never call a book bad. Not in a review, at any rate. An artist poured several hours, days, months, even years into the work, and bashing it is rude and small-minded. If I liked it, then great; if not, then that’s okay too. Not every story is for everyone.

I do feel guilty, though, when I come across a book I can’t get through. I sunk the money into buying it and feel an obligation to complete it, like it or not. Sometimes, you can’t. Spade & Archer is the first DNF I’ve had since I started reviewing books on my various blogs.

I was drawn in by the premise; billed as the prequel to Dashiell Hammett’s legendary The Maltese Falcon, Spade & Archer promised to fill in the blanks of how Sam Spade partnered up with Miles Archer (who dies early on in Falcon) in the first place, as well as define the character’s backstory as a private investigator. It sounded like a great idea, but it just didn’t connect with me. Sam Spade’s first cases as an independent P.I. lacked the same compelling intrigue as The Maltese Falcon. Four separate attempts in the last eight months and I couldn’t get past the first 100 pages.

That’s not to say it was a poorly written book. By all accounts, Joe Gores did a fantastic job aping Dashiell Hammett’s style, and still, he somehow managed to take the hardest edge off a 1920’s man’s man in an incredibly chauvinistic era. He had the full backing of Hammett’s estate in writing this book, which is no small feat. His version of San Francisco seems thoroughly researched, and the city does seem to have a liveliness about it. I believe that part of my problem with connecting to the material is that I never read the source novel, and my only point of reference to The Maltese Falcon is a broad-strokes memory of watching the 1941 movie starring Humphrey Bogart.

Spade & Archer has its fans—dozens of positive reviews on Goodreads and Amazon shower Joe Gores with praise—I’m just not one of them. It wasn’t for lack of trying, however.

Rating: DNF

#2018 #SpadeArcher #TheMalteseFalcon #noir #bookreview #DNF