Once Eddie Dain had a life: a beautiful wife, a happy young son, and a thriving business catching soft-core bad guys by computer. Then he asked too many questions about a suspicious case and made a brutal enemy--one whose calling cards were men with shotguns. After two years of sadistic "therapy", Eddie is reborn as Dain, a killer with deadly skills.

When Sam Spade gets drawn into the Maltese Falcon case, we know what to expect: straight talk, hard questions, no favors, and no way for anyone to get underneath the protective shell he wears like a second skin. We know that his late partner, Miles Archer, was a son of a bitch; that Spade is sleeping with Archers wife, Iva; that his tomboyish secretary, Effie Perine, is the only innocent in his life. What we dont know is how Spade...

Dashiell Hammett has retired from his career as a Pinkerton detective to write fiction. An old friend calls, and Hammett becomes involved in a search for a missing girl in Chinatown.