Black Mask 3: The Maltese Falcon - and Other Crime Fiction from the Legendary Magazine

By: Dashiell Hammett, Frederic Brown, William Cole, Otto Penzler - editor

Narrated by: Jeff Gurner, Oliver Wyman, Pete Larkin

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by "the seminal and venerated mystery pulp magazine" (Booklist). Never before in audio, these vintage stories are the darkest of the dark, and the best of the best.

Crime fiction fans old and new will delight in rediscovering these taut, character-rich, heart-stopping tales, now on audio for the first time. Includes:

• “The Maltese Falcon” by Dashiell Hammett; read by Jeff Gurner
• “Cry Silence” by Frederic Brown; read by Oliver Wyman
• “Waiting for Rusty” by William Cole; read by Pete Larkin

©2010 Otto Penzler. Introduction © 2010 Keith Alan Deutsch. (P)2011 2011 HighBridge Company

Really really good.

No wonder they made it into a movie. Amazing twists in the plot. The excellent narrator makes this story so vivid. Loved it. The 2 additional stories are a seeet surprise.

Maltese Falcon

The Black Mask version of The Maltese Falcon is even better than the version released as a novel. Both are good, but this one was very good. Even if you read/listened to the novel version already, this one is worth it. It is different enough to make it a fresh read.

Falcon is better than the novel

This original Black Mask version of the Maltese Falcon was serialised and longer than the novel, so we get more of the good stuff. Well read, well written.

I Wanted in Intro to the Maltese Falcon

I really enjoyed this on my commutes. I would speed through the episode recaps, but other than that it was easy for me to get into the story. I wanted to finally find out what the Maltese Falcon was about after reading it referenced in a book about San Francisco. I was not disappointed. I enjoyed the two other short stories at the end.