Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon, is born in Saint Mary’s County, Maryland on May 27, 1894. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse). In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on film, Hammett “is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time” and was called, in his obituary in The New York Times, “the dean of the… ‘hard-boiled’ school of detective fiction.” Time magazine included Hammett’s 1929 novel Red Harvest on a list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. Find Sam Spade lurking at the library, in hoopla and on OverDrive (Avalon & Consortium) 

“Who shot him? I asked. The grey man scratched the back of his neck and said: Somebody with a gun.”