THE BLACK BIRD IS BACK: MAX ALLAN COLLINS' RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON

I was excited to read Return of the Maltese Falcon with Max Allan Collins giving private eye Sam Spade another shot at the jewel encrusted bird statue. Not only is Collins a master craftsman of crime fiction, particularly when it comes to the PI yarn, he is also a student of the genre with a deep understanding of the genre's past. He also has experience in continuing the adventures of famed hard boiled heroes, notably his friend Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. He applies all of that talent and knowledge for an entertaining yarn to start the year.

Collins says he considers the book more of a continuation than a sequel. It picks up roughly a week after The Maltese Falcon ends, with Spade nursing a broken heart due to sending Brigid O'Shaughnessy up for the murder of his partner,Miles Archer. The daughter of Casper Gutman, the now deceased corpulent leader of the rogues out to get the falcon, walks into his office, and pulls him back into the quest. She believes the Russian general, Kemedor, has the real statue and is town She hires Spade to track him down. Soon as he hits the streets, others hire him to find the falcon, Chicago gambler Dix Monahan, British museum curator Stewart Blackwood, and a woman claiming to be O 'Shaughnessy's sister. Spade goes into business with all them and then works to figure out which are responsible for the bodies that pile up while he tracks down the bird.

I read the original book as it was serialized in Black Mask and Collin's follow up is seamless. It moves faster. While Hammett, a former Pinkerton agent, offered details of detective life, Collins relies on reveals and reversals. He captures the voice's of Hammett's creations particularly Spade. He taps in to the exact kind of unscrupulous S.O.B., knowing when his code kicks in. The new characters feel they could be Hammett's. Collins knows how to use his research talents he has honed over decades of writing his Nate Heller series with restraint, giving the book a feel that it was written in 1928 than a book about 1928.

While there is love of Hammett's language and characters, reverence never gets in the way of the story telling. Collins main priority is creating a slam bang tale that jumps off from the maltese Falcon and gets Spade closer to the real "digus" (as Spade often refers to it). He gives us jail house visits to Brigid O'Shaughnessy and Casper Gutman's right hand man, Joel Cairo. Young punk Wilma, is back working for someone else, hoping to finally get one up on Spade. The only real fanboy wink in the book is the often misunderstood term of "gunsel" that's applied to the hood in Hammett's book and John Houston's film version. However all of these characters fit perfectly serve the plot and not just nostalgia.

The Return Of The Maltese Falcon works as a fun trip through territory worth revisiting. Hammett knows the source material and , more importantly, how to write a PI novel and it all works to create a fun, unpretensious take on the classic. To quote Mr, Spade, "Take it and like it."