SFist Tonight: Spade & Archer Author Joe Gores
Novelist Joe Gores, a former private eye who has written seventeen novels including the acclaimed Hammett, has written a hard-boiled, old-timey noir "prequel" to Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falcon called Spade & Archer which is set in San Francisco and fills in the picture of Sam Spade as he sets up his detective agency, hires his tomboyish secretary Effie Perrine and brings in Miles Archer as a partner.
The book is a charming read both for its spot-on channeling of Hammett's pulp-style, and for the multitude of SF locations that the characters breeze through, including the Bohemian Club, the Palace Hotel and tea shops in Chinatown circa 1921.
Joe Gores is in town reading from Spade & Archer tonight at the main branch of the Public Library, in the Hispanic/Latino Reading Room at 6:30PM.
Buy the book at a local independent bookstore, or, if you must, here.