# Spade & Archer

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/joe-gores/spade-archer/9781409117537

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![Spade & Archer](https://quivercdn.com/covers/orion/joe-gores/spade-archer_978-14-0911-753-7.jpg?v=2026-04-30%2007%3A44%3A25)

- Book: [Spade & Archer](https://www.bookquiver.com/joe-gores/spade-archer) ([Spade & Archer.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/joe-gores/spade-archer.md))
- Authors: [Joe Gores](https://www.bookquiver.com/joe-gores)
- Publisher: Orion
- ISBN: 978-14-0911-753-7
- Published: 2010-11-25
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

The stunning prequel to Dashiell Hammett's crime classic THE MALTESE FALCON. When Sam Spade gets drawn into the Maltese Falcon case, we know what to expect: straight talk, hard questions, no favours, 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 Archer's wife. What we don't know is how Spade became who he is. Now SPADE & ARCHER completes the picture. 1921: Spade sets up his own agency in San Francisco and clients quickly start coming through the door. The next seven years will see him dealing with booze runners, water-front thugs, stowaways, banking swindlers, gold smugglers, bumbling cops, and the illegitimate daughter of Sun Yat-sen; with murder, other men's mistresses, and long-missing money. He'll bring in Archer as a partner, though it was Archer who stole his girl while he was fighting in World War I. He'll tangle with a villain who never loses his desire to make Spade pay big for ruining what should've been the perfect crime. And he'll fall in love - though it won't turn out for the best. It never does with dames...