Maltese Falcon has been on my to do list for a few years since it was recommended by a law school professor, and I’ve been more and more interested in it as I’ve discovered more and more that I enjoy murder mystery novels (shoutout to Poirot). The first few chapters of this story had me absolutely hooked. I loved the super fast wit and the sharp and dirty descriptions, and I will forever by using the toast “success to crime” now. Admittedly though when all our characters meet up and begin betraying each other in back to back to back to back sequence, I felt like the story lost its pacing. This story is definitely worth reading, but I wanted it to keep the speed of the rising action throughout the tale, and I felt like it slowed up sharply after Spade got some sex.