"...IT WAS NECESSARY TO GET INTO HAMMETT'S APPROACH": THE RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON'S MAX ALLAN COLLINS

Max Allan Collins applied both of his skills as a detective fiction writer and detective fiction historian The Return Of The Maltese Falcon, a continuation of Hammett's classic. He credibly delivers Sam Spade and the returning characters as well as introducing a few new ones that fit perfectly in the world. I was able to ask Mr. Collins some questions about the book, his comic book Ms. Tree, that has been fully reprinted, and the sequel to a classic detective film he did a disc commentary track on.

SCOTT MONTGOMERY: You said you have been wanting to do a follow up to The Maltese Falcon, waiting for the book to go in public domain. What drew you to wanting to continue the story?

MAX ALLAN COLLINS: The Maltese Falcon has been my favorite novel since I was twelve or thirteen.  My Nathan Heller historical mysteries grew out of noticing the copyright on Hammett’s novel was 1929, prompting me to think, “Al Capone and Sam Spade were contemporaries,” which opened up a door on how to approach the private eye in an historical setting.

Like so many readers, I wished Hammett had written more Spade novels.  With The Maltese Falcon coming into the public domain, I knew somebody would use Spade, probably a number of people.  I wanted to do it first, and I wanted to do it right.  With the original novel’s open ending, I figured picking it up at that point made sense, and would allow me to work within Spade’s world – the character Hammett had already created, the locations and setting he’d established.

I was well-aware this is risky.  “Who does this guy think he is?” is a reasonable reaction, and one that can’t be overcome unless a skeptic reads my sequel, and likes it.

S.M.: What makes Hammett's book a classic to you?

M.A.C.: It’s beautifully written in a manner uniquely Hammett’s own.  From a genre standpoint, he created the modern private eye, the entire template: the cynical private eye, the secretary who loves him (and who he maybe loves), the cop pal, the cop adversary, the femme fatale, the criminal boss and his thug assistant.  All of it.  He invents, perfects and abandons the genre he’s just created.

S.M: I read the Black Mask serialized version of the Falcon before I read the book. I thought you matched Hammett's tone well, particularly in Spade's dialogue and action. What was your key to the character?

M.A.C.: That’s an incredible compliment – thank you.  This wasn’t just about writing a Sam Spade story.  For me, it was necessary to get inside Hammett’s approach, his style, but stop short of pastiche – allow some of my native style in and, of course, come to it as a period novel, not the contemporary one Hammett wrote.

 The key is the unique Hammett approach.  He is quite subjective as an omniscient narrator, but objective as to what the characters – including Spade himself – are thinking.  Usually we know everything the detective knows – Phillip Marlowe and Mike Hammer don’t have any secrets. We know Spade only through his actions, including dialogue.  Sam Spade is one big secret, the real mystery at the heart of The Maltese Falcon.

S.M.: The book also felt like something written in 1928 instead of looking at the period. When did you know when to use your research?

M.A.C.: I’m an old hand at using research in writing a mystery or suspense novel – it’s a big part of my Nathan Heller novels.  I learned early on to use research only when I needed it and be able to let go of some fascinating morsel I dug out of research that doesn’t have a specific place or use in the novel.

Obviously The Maltese Falcon was the major research tool.  I stayed with Hammett’s descriptions (without repeating them) of locations, and with locations that were either new to my novel or were under-described in Hammett, I used research to create a sense of time and place.  My key tools were Don Herron’s The Dashiell Hammett Tour, the WPA Guides to San Francisco and California, and the North Point Press edition of The Maltese Falcon, illustrated with period photos and annotated notes.

 S.M.: I found it ironic that while writing a sequel to one of the most lauded detective novels, you did a commentary track for the sequel to one of the most lauded detective films, The Two Jakes, a movie I always felt was underrated. What do you admire about it?

 M.A.C.: Everybody goes into The Two Jakes with a Chinatown chip on their shoulder and don’t drink in the great Nicholson performance, the Robert Towne dialogue, the terrific cinematography and the resonance with the original.  I love Chinatown and I love The Two Jakes.  After Chinatown’s success, Towne announced he was doing a trilogy about water, oil, and air. I tried, unsuccessfully, to get the rights to finish the Jake Gettes trilogy as a prose novel, Gittes Vs. Gittes, in part about divorce but mostly about pollution and the building of the freeways.  Not sure whether Towne ever took it to the script stage.  Jack Nicholson should be proud, and a lot of people are wrong. 

S.M.: Hard Case Comics finished putting out your entire run of Ms. Tree. What did you enjoy about the character?

 M.A.C.: The basic idea was that tough detective and his faithful secretary get married and the detective is murdered on their wedding night.  The secretary takes over the agency and solves her late husband’s murder.  That was the off-the-top-of-my-head pitch when I was asked to create a comics feature for editor Dean Mullaney in 1981.  Artist Terry Beatty and I considered using Bette Page as the model, but we went instead with a tall, physically strong yet still beautiful and alluring female lead, who is every bit as violent and vengeance-oriented as you’d expect a female Mike Hammer to be.  But what Terry and I developed over the decade-plus run of the feature was a character who had to pay the price for her vengeance – she was sent to prison, she was committed to a mental institution, she was the object of someone’s else thirst for vengeance, and so on.  I loved taking her beyond the ending of a conventional vigilante tale and having to deal with the consequences of what she’s done.

S.M.: What made Terry Beatty such a good collaborator for the character?

 M.A.C.: We were friends here in Muscatine, Iowa.  He was the son of my favorite teacher, in junior high, a mentor of sorts.  I saw talent in this kid, and I was right.  We worked together fairly constantly for something like twenty-five years, and have done occasional projects ever since.  He now is a syndicated cartoonist, doing Rex Morgan MD, writing it too, and won an Eisner for his Batman work.

 We approached Ms. Tree as an exercise in coherence, because at the time – the early ‘80s – comic books were getting caught up in incomprehensible design, with artists showing off.  Our idols were comics strip giants Milton Caniff and Will Eisner, and Johnny Craig, the great EC Comics artist, and Dick Sprang, the best of the 1940s and 1950s Batman artists.

 Some of the critics in the comics world hated us, but we grew a substantial fan base and became the longest- running private eye comic book ever.  So far, anyway.

S.M.:Can you share what to expect from you next?

M.A.C.: I have a major project coming out – a full-cast audio drama, True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak, four-and-a-half hours long.  It’s based on the first Nathan Heller novel, True Detective (1981) and I wrote the script myself.  The director is Robert Meyer Burnett, who has a ton of film credits, and the incredible cast includes, as Heller, Michael Rosenbaum, who played Lex Luther on Smallville, and David Strathairn, Anthony LaPaglia, Katee Sackhoff, Jeffrey Combs, Patton Oswalt, Bill Mumy, Adam Arkin, Barry Bostwick, Bill Smitrovich, and William Sadler, among others.

 We completed it late last year and it goes into international distribution in mid-February.  Very proud of this, and hope it leads to more and perhaps a film or streaming series.

In November Hard Case Crime will release Quarry’s Reunion, the 50^th anniversary Quarry novel – the first novel, Quarry, came out in 1976.