Falcon Nice Reviews (Get It?)

January 13th, 2026 by Max Allan Collins

I am happy to report that the reviews for Return of the Maltese Falcon thus far have been overwhelmingly positive. While proud of the book, and delighted to have had the chance to write it, I have braced myself (at my smart wife’s instructions) for what might be reviews in the “who do you think you are?” category.

That reaction is understandable.

My only justification is that the novel was written out of love and respect for Dashiell Hammett and his great novel. I was writing it essentially for the adolescent I’d been who desperately wanted to read another Sam Spade novel.

When I began reading mystery fiction, and became obsessed with Mickey Spillane and Mike Hammer, I knew that Mickey hadn’t written a Hammer novel in almost ten years. Imagine my delight and astonishment when in 1961 (nine years after Kiss Me, Deadly) Mickey gave his readers The Girl Hunters.

I knew, with The Maltese Falcon coming into the public domain, that Sam Spade would inevitably be subjected to the kind of nonsense that Winnie the Pooh, Popeye the Sailor and Steamboat Willie have, by way of “inspiring” bottom-feeding horror features. Higher up the food chain, but not necessarily involving writers who understood and respected the material they were drawing upon, new Sam Spade stories would almost certainly emerge. Paging James Patterson.

I wanted to be first and (at least try to) do it right.

Here is a review at Book Reporter that I particularly liked seeing, as the reviewer seemed to understand and appreciate what I was up to.

You may be interested in checking out this interview from Alex Dueben at CrimeReads, which is different from most of the many other interviews I’ve given over the years. Frankly, I usually request questions in writing and will respond accordingly – e-mail interviews. I can control what gets out there.

This interview, however, was actually transcribed and presented as spoken. It is long, and I thought pretty good, if exposing my loquaciousness (like that needed exposure). I was given the opportunity to go over it, and corrected a couple of things, but mostly got out of Alex’s way. I wasn’t happy with how long-winded I was, but relieved I spoke in actual sentences…a novelty these days.

There is a quite gratifying post on Linked-in from a longtime fan (he used to write into the Ms. Tree letters column, SWAK, frequently) – Wylie Wong. I love that name. It has music.

Anyway, I’m going to share his nice write-up with you.

I need to fanboy for a bit. Max Allan Collins – best known as the author of Road to Perdition – is the reason I grew up wanting to be a writer. And he just sent me an autographed copy of his latest novel, Return of the Maltese Falcon.

As a teen, I devoured his Ms. Tree comic books and mystery novels. I loved his work so much that I wrote him a 12-page fan letter. Somewhere in my gushing praise, I mentioned I couldn’t find two of his out-of-print novels. A month later, Collins responded with the coolest Christmas gift: those two books – autographed.

Later, I met him at San Diego Comic-Con and went full geek with a backpack full of his books to sign. He graciously spent 20 minutes chatting and signing, then told me he was publishing a condensed version of my letter in Ms. Tree. That fan letter became the first thing I ever had published.

When I went to college, I double-majored in creative writing and journalism, curious about a career in either fiction or non-fiction. Collins influenced my writing in unexpected ways – I even fell in love with the em dash because of him – and I’ve used it ever since. (So screw you, AI. I used it first.) But I enjoyed journalism too much, so I dropped creative writing and focused on telling true stories instead. No regrets.

Fast forward to 2024: Collins announced he was writing a sequel to Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. I loved the original book. I loved the movie. A sequel from my favorite author? I’m all in.

When the book came out this week, Collins offered free copies to the first 20 people who promised to write an Amazon review. I wrote to him saying I’d already pre-ordered a copy but would love to be included. I told him I was still a big fan and shared that after college, I lived on Leavenworth Street in San Francisco, two blocks from where Hammett lived and supposedly finished the Falcon. On cold, foggy nights, like SF Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, I’d imagine Sam Spade tromping up and down the hills.

Collins responded saying it was a “terrific email” and he’d send me the book and to “feel free to read the hell out of your other copy.”

I don’t know if he even remembers me. But receiving this book brings me right back to my teenage years, reading voraciously and learning good storytelling.

Oh, and for the record: I have the real Maltese Falcon in my home office. Photo as proof.

Thank you for this, Wylie. Good reviews, and particularly rave reviews, feel great – but a piece like yours goes way beyond anything of those.

M.A.C.

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Return of the Maltese Falcon Pub Date

January 6th, 2026 by Max Allan Collins

Despite the title this week, I am not suggesting we all go down to the local pub and discuss Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon.

No.

It is the publication date of my sequel to The Maltese Falcon that we are celebrating on January 6, 2026 (not the sixth anniversary of the Insurrection at the Capitol, either).

The celebration actually began last week, when I announced a book giveaway for copies of the hardcover Hard Case Crime first edition of Return of the Maltese Falcon. I offered 20 copies but expanded that to 25 from my personal stash. All 25 copies were gone on the first day. My thanks to all of you who entered and won, and especially to those I had to turn away.

Tomorrow as I write this (and today as you read it), you will be able to send a review to Amazon and other of the usual on-line suspects (Amazon doesn’t allow pre-pub reviews). I have been asked what it feels like to have this dream project actually come to fruition, and I have replied thusly: I am waiting to see it displayed among the New Releases at the Davenport, Iowa, Barnes & Noble – then I will believe it. And savor it.

Yes, I have long been dreaming about doing my own Sam Spade novel, and I can pinpoint when that desire began: 1961. I was thirteen, still in junior high, specifically the 8th grade. I saw the movie on TV that same year – I believe I did so on a Sunday morning, having convinced my parents that I was sick and couldn’t go to Sunday school or church.

I’ve done several interviews, including one on YouTube, wondering if the idea of specifically doing a Maltese Falcon sequel was something I’d had in mind from the start. The truth is: no. I just wanted to do a Sam Spade novel. The idea for the sequel was what I came up when I made my pitch to Titan Books in March of 2024. I think the whole pitch was, “I’d like to do a sequel to The Maltese Falcon.”

Doing so was gratifying and enjoyable, but hard. Hammett’s brilliant novel was a contemporary work; mine was a period piece. I had plenty of experience in the latter, having done all those Nathan Heller, Eliot Ness and “disaster series’ novels (like The Titanic Murders). So I was something of an old hand at historical fiction, which this would be in a way.

Hammett’s sly, spare style had to occasionally give way to describing places in a historical context – fortunately I had WPA Guides to both San Francisco and California, Don Herron’s excellent The Dashiell Hammett Tour, and several other reference works to call upon. Internet research also came into play. I think – hope – I hit the right balance.

When I completed the novel – having read it through to my satisfaction, doing any necessary tweaks – I was ready to send it to editor/publisher Charles Ardai at Hard Case Crime (Titan is the parent company) – my wife Barb (a writer herself) took me gently aside.

“You’d better prepare yourself,” she said, “for attacks. Not by everybody, but you will be seen by some as exploiting a classic.”

I’d known that going in, but hearing Barb say it was damn near bone-chilling. And last year, as word about my novel got around, I was in fact attacked several times, before the book had even come out or been read by anybody.

I have run into this before. It’s likely, if you’re reading this, that you are aware of my love for Mickey Spillane as a man and a writer, and that – at his request in his final days – he honored me by asking me to complete various works of his that were to be found in his three home offices. He did not put this in motion for his glory or mine, for that matter; but to generate income for his widow, Jane Spillane.

And yet.

There are hardcore Spillane fans who refuse to read the Spillane/Collins byline books or say disparaging things about them. This despite every one of the 16 novels (14 Mike Hammer) having significant Spillane content. The first ten or so were manuscripts well in progress by him, 100 manuscript pages (and notes about endings in some cases). One reader posted a review of Complex 90 (in which I show Velda and Mike in an overtly sexual relationship), accusing me of doing explicit material in a way that Mickey supposedly never would have.

Apparently that huge Spillane fan had never read either The Erection Set or The Last Cop Out. Hint: The Erection Set has erections in it, and I don’t mean buildings.

A key part of my approach to the Spillane co-bylined novels was to determine when he had written the partial manuscripts (and other material), so I could place the book at hand in the context of where Mickey was as a writer and as a man at that moment.

Much of the Spillane unpubbed material was developed during the (ahem) long wait between Kiss Me, Deadly (1952) and The Deep (a non-Hammer followed a year later by Hammer’s return in The Girl Hunters). But Mickey didn’t stop writing during that period – he published a dozen novellas, usually in the men’s adventure magazine Cavalier – works that are a window into his thinking and his evolving literary style.

Here’s the thing about The Maltese Falcon and public domain: somebody was going to do it. Other things that have gone into the public domain have led to such wondrous creative projects as horror films featuring Popeye the Sailor, Winnie the Pooh and Steamboat Willie. I wanted to make a respectful, serious attempt to do Sam Spade correctly. Faithful to Hammett. Others will no doubt follow me, and some may do a better job of it. But I wanted to be first and do it right.

After all, we can’t be far away from James Patterson bylining a novel in which Sam Spade meets Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, perhaps among Father Brown’s congregation or maybe in the waiting room of Sherlock Holmes, possibly to solve the murder of C. Auguste Dupin.

Anyway, you can imagine how relieved I’ve been at getting such great reviews from the three major book reviewing services: Publisher’s Weekly (a starred review), Booklist and even Kirkus, who in the past have often indicated that humanity would have been better served if I’d just stayed at sacking groceries (I was goddamn good at that).

The first review not from one of those reviewing services has popped up, and it’s worth sharing with you.

Return of the Maltese Falcon
Reviewed by James Reasoner

I’m starting the new year off well with an excellent novel from Max Allan Collins. I’ve been a fan of THE MALTESE FALCON since I read the novel in high school, the first thing by Dashiell Hammett I ever read, I believe. Needless to say, I was hooked. Now the original magazine version of the novel, as serialized in the iconic pulp BLACK MASK, is in public domain, and that’s what Collins has used as the starting point for his new novel RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON, which, as he points out, is a continuation rather than a true sequel.

And if, by some chance, you’ve never read Hammett’s novel, stop right now and read it before you read this review, and absolutely don’t tackle Collins’ novel until you’ve read the original, because they’re both, of necessity, full of spoilers. I mean it!

The action starts a week after the end of THE MALTESE FALCON, in December 1928. The dead Miles Archer’s desk has been removed from the office of Spade & Archer, and Effie Perrine, Sam Spade’s secretary, has put up a Christmas tree in its place. (Does that make this a Christmas novel? It sure does!)

A potential client pays a visit to Spade’s office. She’s Rhea Gutman, Casper Gutman’s daughter, and she wants to hire Spade to find the real Falcon. The one in Hammett’s novel was a fake, remember? Rhea is the first of four clients who give Spade a retainer to find the dingus. The others are Chicago gambler Dixie Monahan, Corrine Wonderly, the younger sister of femme fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy, and Steward Blackwood, an official from the British Museum who claims that institution is the true owner of the Falcon.

Spade plays all these characters against each other. He has run-ins with the cops. A dead body turns up. Spade is hit on the head and knocked out, and he’s captured by a gunman who wants to kill him. This is great stuff in the classic hardboiled private eye mode, the kind of thing that Dashiell Hammett invented, along with Carroll John Daly. Stylistically, Collins’ fast-moving, straight-ahead prose isn’t quite as stripped down as Hammett’s, but it’s certainly in the same ballpark.

Being constrained to use only the elements to be found in the original novel’s pulp serialization turns out to be a good thing. Collins is able to bring on-stage characters who were only mentioned before and invent new ones who fit perfectly in that setting. The resolution of the mystery and the way the book wraps everything up are extremely satisfying.

A number of years ago, I read and loved Joe Gores’ prequel novel SPADE & ARCHER. RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON is even better. I’m glad Max Allan Collins wrote it, and I’m grateful to Hard Case Crime for publishing it. It’ll be out officially in e-book and hardcover editions tomorrow. For hardboiled fans, I give it my highest recommendation.

This is, obviously, a lovely review. James Reasoner, a top-notch word smith himself, is incorrect about one thing: while I re-read the serialization of The Maltese Falcon (in Otto Penzler’s The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories), the basis for my sequel is the published novel (Knopf, 1930). The serialization did not go into the public domain till last year, as its final installment appeared January 1930.

Trust me – I kept an eye on that.

Nonetheless, Mr. Reasoner liking my novel means a lot to me, as he is about as seasoned a pro in the fiction game as anybody I know of.

If you are familiar with the Bogart-starring film adaptation of The Maltese Falcon, a re-reading of that novel before reading the sequel isn’t necessary. A few readers have already told me they plan to re-read the original after they’ve read my sequel. Or that they will view the 1941 film either again or for the first time, in preparation of reading Return of the Maltese Falcon.

That my book will bring some new readers to Hammett’s masterpiece (The Glass Key is next best) is incredibly gratifying.

* * *

My pal Robert Meyer Burnett – who so masterfully directed the audio drama True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak, adapted by me from my novel True Detective – is a well-known YouTube pundit (among much else) with two long-running shows on that platform: Robservations and Let’s Get Physical Media.

On the first weekend of January, 2026, I appeared on episodes of both of those shows.

I caution you: these are lengthy episodes. The Robervations is an interview of me by Rob about (largely) Return of the Maltese Falcon). It runs around two hours!

The Let’s Get Physical Media has Rob, co-host Dieter Bastion, and me discussing our top ten favorite physical media releases of the year – it’s well over three hours with many excursions into this and that, including my most recent battle with Rob over Never Say Never Again, the film missing from the Sean Connery “James Bond” 4K set.

The interview:

The Favorite Blu-ray and 4K releases of 2025 from Burnett, Bastion and Collins:

Amazingly, one of the outstanding reviewers of physical media on the Net, That Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader, has done a very smart deep-dive into my novelization of the Dick Tracy movie, and goes into my misadventures writing it.

Even more amazingly, Spencer Draper, The Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader himself, has done the same for my two hard-to-find Tracy novels, Dick Tracy Goes to War and Dick Tracy Meets His Match.

He’s articulate and very, very smart, but again, a warning: these ain’t short shows. The novelization episode is about half an hour, and the Tracy novels episode is about forty minutes.

Damn that Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader! He makes me want to try to get the rights back to reprint the two rare Tracy novels he discusses!

* * *

Here’s another one of those articles about movies from comics that aren’t about superheroes.

* * *

Let’s make 2026 a much better year than the last.

M.A.C.

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Hey Kids! Sam Spade Book Giveaway (and More)!

December 30th, 2025 by Max Allan Collins

January 6, 2026, approaches, meaning Return of the Maltese Falcon finally goes on sale at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the usual suspects. (Hardcover: | E-Book: Nook Kobo Google PLay Apple Books)

[All copies have been claimed. Thank you for your support! –Nate]

We are celebrating with a free book giveaway – thanks to the kind folks at Hard Case Crime (“folks” being editor/publisher Charles Ardai), I have secured 20 copies of my Sam Spade sequel for the first twenty among you who contact me (with apologies to Nero Wolfe for using contact as a verb) at macphilms@hotmail.com requesting a copy. I will sign and (if you request it) personalize these copies.

The rules: you must include in your e-mail your snail-mail address (even if you’ve won before); and you agree to write a review at Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble. Reviews on personal blogs are also encouraged. (If you dislike the book, you are encouraged not to review it!)

If you review for an on-line mystery site and want to review it, let me know and I’ll get you a copy, not from this batch of twenty.

Unfortunately, no Canadian or other foreign entries can be honored. International postage rates are higher than ever (aren’t tariffs wonderful?). I wanted to send a friend in Germany a copy and it would have cost $80.

IMPORTANT: DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR AMAZON REVIEW OF RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON BEFORE PUBLICATION DAY, JANUARY 6. THEY WILL NOT USE IT OTHERWISE!

Those of you who have already pre-ordered, thank you. And anyone who picks this up, thank you, paying customer!

This is an important book for me – both in the creative sense, bringing my love for private eye fiction full circle, and in trying to stay relevant in a publishing landscape where many of my readers are (choke) no longer with us, and lots of my editors have retired. Plus, publishing generally sucks.

I have been lucky so far to stay afloat thanks to the loyal readers who have stuck with me or discovered me recently and liked what they saw. Barb and I are grateful to all of you.

Speaking of Barb, she is just finishing up her draft of Antiques Web for Severn House and I will be starting my draft at the beginning of January.

Thank you all of you again, and let’s have a better 2026. Shouldn’t be hard, but it likely will be.

* * *

In the meantime, check out this great review from Kirkus, the third of the three major book review outlets to give a rave or near rave to Return of the Maltese Falcon. This is especially gratifying, since in the past Kirkus has frequently implied that my true calling was my previous job: sacking groceries.

RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON
Max Allan Collins

Did you ever imagine that The Maltese Falcon could spawn a sequel? Well, Collins has, and although it’s no match for Dashiell Hammett, it’s surprisingly successful on its own terms.

After all, Hammett’s novel ends a bit up in the air, with (spoiler alert) Brigid O’Shaughnessy on her way to jail for killing Sam Spade’s partner, Miles Archer, but scheming, bloated Casper Gutman’s gunsel Wilmer Cook escaping after the precious falcon behind all the novel’s intrigue is revealed to be a phony. So why shouldn’t Gutman’s daughter, Rhea, call on Spade just a week later, as Christmas 1928 approaches, to hire him to track down the bird that the untrustworthy supplier, Russian general Kemidov, replaced with a fake? Spade agrees, and soon he has a stable of four clients—Rhea, Chicago gambler Dixie Monahan, British Museum curator Steward Blackwood, and Corrine Wonderly, Brigid’s kid sister—each of whom, unknown to the others, has paid him a retainer to locate a treasure none of them intends to share with anyone else. There’ll be more fatalities, of course, including two members of the original cast, before Spade gathers his clients together for a Christmas party at which he stages exactly the sort of denouement Hammett consistently took pains to avoid in all his fiction. 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.

* * *

Christmas may be over, but ‘tis still the season (for a few days anyway), so if you haven’t already watched our little micro-budget movie Blue Christmas, there’s still time to view it in a Yuletide context.

We’ve recently been accepted on You Tube, after jumping through a few hoops, but it’s available a bunch of places:

Tubi, Fawesome, or rent/buy it on Amazon Prime Video, with it sometimes appearing on library services like Hoopla. Some of these involve commercials – Tubi, I believe, opens with some ads and then the movie plays without further interruption.

I found the following review most insightful. If you’re a fan of the movie or of my work in general, check this out.

* * *

The HBO/Cinemax series Quarry, based of course on my book series, is number 2 on this list of worthwhile shows you may have missed, describing it as having a “beautiful visual style, and a gripping story – Quarry is an underappreciated classic worth discovering.”

I wrote an episode of the series and received a sole screen credit, but actually it was spread across two episodes by another writer who took the other sole credit. Just a Hollywood thing.

I’m proud of the show and, if you like the book series, you will probably like it. It does lack the dry humor of the novels, and moves the action to Memphis (one of the Quarry novels does take place in Memphis, Quarry’s Climax). And the concept of Quarry tracking other hitmen for targeted clients was something set for the second season (for which I wrote an episode and was paid for doing so) that never happened.

My understanding about why that second season did not get a greenlight is that the show runner and star clashed, refusing to work together again. That’s not a fact, just what I heard from insider sources. Again – Hollywood.

The real Quarry is coming from Hard Case Crime in 2026 in Quarry’s Reunion, but that will be late in the year.

2026 is all about Return of the Maltese Falcon.

M.A.C.

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Best Crime Novel Honor & Christmas Gifts for Everybody!

December 23rd, 2025 by Max Allan Collins

Some announcements as we head toward Christmas 2025, after which I have some presents for you to unwrap.

Barb and I have been invited to be guests of honor at this year’s Star City Film Festival, where last year Death by Fruitcake won Best Feature. Mickey Spillane’s Cap City, which I co-produced and wrote, will be an official entry.

Last year we went to Waukon, Iowa, for the fest; but this year festival chair Dr. Katie O’Regan is moving the proceedings to Des Moines and the terrific Fleur Theatre, which is very supportive of Iowa filmmakers. More about this later, but if you’re within driving distance, mark your calendar for Valentine’s Day weekend 2026.

I’m pleased to say that the great Borg web site has named Baby, It’s Murder the Best Crime Novel of the Year. If you go to the link, you’ll need to scroll down to read this nice honor for my final Mike Hammer collaboration developed from unpublished Spillane material.

And out of the blue comes this interesting review of Seduction of the Innocent, the third of the Jack and Maggie Starr mysteries (and likely the last).

If you haven’t seen my movie Blue Christmas, and would like some low-budget holiday cheer, it’s available on various streaming services, most recently You Tube.

* * *

Now my Christmas presents for all of you who stop by here. These are performances from some of my favorite musical artists – many of you will be familiar with most if not all. But I encourage everyone to enjoy these, possibly with some rum-spiked egg nog.

This rendition of “Lazy River” starts out slow but really, really builds, as Bobby Darin so often did. Stick around for the whole performance and you’ll likely understand my obsession with BD that dates back to when I was eleven years old.

Introducing the Beatles doing “Ticket to Ride,” which I loved performing with the Daybreakers and Crusin’.

If you’ve never witnessed Vanilla Fudge in action, here’s their mind-boggling classic appearance on Ed Sullivan with “You Keep Me Hangin’ On.”

What James Bond fan can resist a great live performance of “Thunderball” by Tom Jones?

The most underrated female artist of the ‘80s – Kim Wilde. Feast your eyes and ears.

This, my friends is rock ‘n’ from the king – Elvis…Costello.

And here is Debbie Harry on The Midnight Special making America fall in love with her:

And my favorite non-Beatles British invasion group in a Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame performance.

Finally, last and least, here are the Daybreakers in 2008, the original band regrouped for their induction into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Say what you will about the goofy song I wrote in 1967 – which became the only national release by my first band, the Daybreakers – it did go on to be one of the most anthologized garage band singles, covered by bands around the world, including (but not limited to) The Outta Place, The Tellers and the X-Ray Harpoons.

You’re welcome. Now, let’s have a better 2026, everybody!

M.A.C.

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