Pinkerton detective-turned-author Dashiell Hammett realized he had something special on his hands when he submitted his revised, typewritten version of The Maltese Falcon to publisher Alfred A. Knopf in July 1929, asking that Knopf (who had previously handled his books Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) practice restraint in editing this latest manuscript. As Hammett scholar Richard Layman has explained: “He knew what he was doing, he said. Hammett wanted to get his third book right. It was a departure work for him, his attempt to break away from the formulas of pulp fiction to create a work with serious literary value.” Although the writer resisted changes by copy editors, he continued to tweak his own story—which had originally appeared (in slightly different form) in five monthly segments in Black Mask magazine—right up to when Knopf finally sent it away for printing. The completed novel was released on February 14, 1930.

Ninety-six years later, with the copyright on Hammett’s best-remembered (and most-filmed) tale having lapsed at the end of 2025, Iowa crime-fictionist Max Allan Collins seeks to add another “something special” to the Falcon legend. In Return of the Maltese Falcon, released this month by Hard Case Crime, he has boldly resuscitated the original book’s “hard and shifty” protagonist, San Francisco private investigator Samuel Spade, and sent him back out to locate the bejeweled bird of the title—which, you will likely recall, was never recovered in Hammett’s hard-boiled classic.

Penning a sequel to such a seminal genre work can only be characterized as intimidating. Indeed, Collins acknowledges that “avoiding strictly pure mimicry, and writing in my own style while honoring Hammett’s, was a tightrope to walk.” But the critical reception for Return of the Maltese Falcon has so far been generally favorable. Kirkus Reviews remarks that “Collins’ dialogue sounds pleasingly like Hammett’s; his plotting is even twistier; and if his descriptions mix Hammett’s terse, affectless minimalism with Raymond Chandler’s fondness for florid similes, that’s clearly, as he notes in an engaging coda, his intention. Fans convinced that nobody could possibly continue a tale that ends so definitely owe it to themselves to give Collins a try.” Reviewer Ray Palen of Bookreporter says Return is “a work of wonder, and I enjoyed every second of it. Collins has not just inhabited Hammett’s world but breathed new life into it and made it distinctly his own.” Finally, prolific author and blogger James Reasoner observes that, “stylistically, Collins’ fast-moving, straight-ahead prose isn’t quite as stripped down as Hammett’s, but it’s certainly in the same ballpark.” He adds: “The resolution of the mystery and the way the book wraps everything up are extremely satisfying.”

As Collins has stated in the past, he fell in love with The Maltese Falcon in 1961, when he was 13 years old and first watched the 1941 Humphrey Bogart movie adaptation on television. Not until much later did he consider recruiting Sam Spade into a new story—not necessarily a Falcon follow-up, but at least another novel starring the same principal. (Spade’s single other book-length appearance came in Joe Gores’ authorized 2009 Falcon prequel, Spade & Archer.)

To help him answer those questions in Return of the Maltese Falcon, Collins brings back most of the original novel’s cast—some in secondary roles—while beefing up the involvement of several players to whom Hammett had assigned lesser parts. (Have no doubt: You should definitely have read the 1930 book before tackling Return.)

When I first learned that Max Allan Collins would be revitalizing Sam Spade in a continuation novel—a sequel to one of American detective fiction’s founding yarns, no less—I felt a moment’s consternation. However, I reminded myself that Collins, who was named a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master in 2017, is a crackerjack tale-spinner who has given us two estimable series (a historical one starring Chicago gumshoe Nate Heller, and a second featuring the hit man known only as Quarry), and that he’s already succeeded in extending the life of another notable P.I., Mike Hammer, writing 13 new novels to add to the 13 Mickey Spillane had produced by the time he died in 2006. Furthermore, Collins put another iconic sleuth—Philip Marlowe—through his paces in “The Perfect Crime,” composed for the 1988 collection Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe: A Centennial Celebration, edited by Byron Preiss. (He subsequently swapped Marlowe for Heller and added that story to his 2001 “casebook,” Kisses of Death.)

With its text having now entered the public domain, this seems to be the season to celebrate Dashiell Hammett’s third novel. Publisher Poltroon Press has brought a new, photo-embellished hardcover version of The Maltese Falcon to market that also features a pair of Spade short stories inked by modern San Francisco-area author Mark Coggins. Blackstone has released its own “collectors edition,” complete with black-and-white illustrations and artistically sprayed page edges. Meanwhile, Steeger Books is selling hardback (or paperback) copies of the Falcon as it was serialized in Black Mask, with more than 2,000 textual variations from the final, 1930 book, and including the original pulp-style interior art by Arthur Rodman Bowker. Finally, notebook maker Field Notes has packaged that same magazine edit in imitation of the World War II-era Armed Service Editions.

Return of the Maltese Falcon is altogether something bigger, though. In this, his 53rd year as a published author (Bait Money, his debut novel, came out in 1973), Collins has given us not only an homage to Hammett’s most memorable composition; he’s drawn a direct line between himself and that august scribbler of yore, emphasizing the fact that he wouldn’t have the award-winning career he does without Hammett and other ink-slinging pioneers having laid the foundations of the popular field in which he toils. There will be Hammett purists who object vociferously to Max Allan Collins, or anybody else, employing Sam Spade in fresh adventures. Yet when the results are as delightful, dramatic, and downright satisfying as Return of the Maltese Falcon, it’s hard to argue that the effort should never have been made.