Tom Towles

"Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be. That kind of reputation might be good business."—Samuel Spade, private investigator

"Spade...is what most of the private detectives I worked with would like to have been and in their cockier moments thought they approached."—Dashiell Hammett

The Maltese Falcon first appeared in the pages of Black Mask magazine in 1929. Almost immediately it was acknowledged as not

...

An alien serial killer is sent to Earth to live among humans as punishment. Although the alien's body has been genetically transformed to look human, the procedure is incomplete, and after a while he begins to revert to his original form. After his head explodes, he must "borrow" another from anyone who happens to be nearby. He does so by squeezing the person's head off with a crablike claw and skewering itonto his own neck. The fact that all of the...

Sally begins to chafe at her role as a woman when Dick invites Mrs. Dubcek and her daughter Vicki for Thanksgiving dinner. But Harry and Vicki hit it off at the dinner table. Meanwhile, it becomes a true American holiday when Tommy fights with Dick and runs away to a pool hall.