Academy Voices · Story Series · Black Mask, 1929
Dashiell Hammett'sThe Maltese Falcon
On the first night a detective's partner is shot dead in the fog. Everyone who walks into his office after that is lying about a black bird.
20 episodes5 out nowNew ones Mondays & ThursdaysRead by Wayne ChampionEpisode 1 free
Exhibit A · Episode 1, free
Spade & Archer
This is how the book really opens, before any movie. Press play and Wayne reads it to you.
CASE 1928
Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.
He said to Effie Perine: "Yes, sweetheart?"
"There's a girl wants to see you. Her name's Wonderly."
"A customer?"
"I guess so. You'll want to see her anyway: she's a knockout."
Episode 1 · 14 min · read by Wayne Champion
Where it began
Five months on the newsstand, 1929
The Maltese Falcon first came out in installments in Black Mask, the pulp magazine that made the hard-boiled detective. Readers bought the next issue to find out who was lying. This series works the same way.
Exhibit B · The suspect board
Everyone in this office is lying
Every name and every story they tell. What's really true about each one stays locked here, so nobody spoils it for you.
Exhibit C · The bird's trail
Four hundred years of chasing one bird
The fat man, Gutman, tells Spade where the falcon has been since the Knights of Malta made it in 1530: pirates, a king's wedding gift, the gutters of Paris. Tap a stop.
"I wanted it and I found it. I want it and I'm going to have it."Casper Gutman, Episode 13: The Emperor's Gift
Exhibit D · San Francisco, 1928
The city in the fog
Hammett worked as a Pinkerton detective in these streets. Some of the places are real, and one of them is still serving lamb chops.
Exhibit E · The case file
20 episodes, one chapter each
Hammett's own chapter titles. A new one opens every Monday and Thursday morning. Episode 1 plays free right here.
1
Spade & Archer14 min
2
Death in the Fog22 min
OUT NOW
3
Three Women13 min
OUT NOW
4
The Black Bird23 min
OUT NOW
5
The Levantine12 min
OUT NOW
6
The Undersized Shadow15 min
Oct 26
7
G in the Air22 min
Oct 29
8
Horse Feathers14 min
Nov 2
9
Brigid13 min
Nov 5
10
The Belvedere Divan18 min
Nov 9
11
The Fat Man20 min
Nov 12
12
Merry-Go-Round15 min
Nov 16
13
The Emperor's Gift17 min
Nov 19
14
La Paloma15 min
Nov 23
15
Every Crackpot18 min
Nov 26
16
The Third Murder19 min
Nov 30
17
Saturday Night21 min
Dec 3
18
The Fall-Guy29 min
Dec 7
19
The Russian's Hand36 min
Dec 10
20
If They Hang You23 min
Dec 14
Season Pass
$4.99
- All 20 episodes, about 6½ hours
- New ones play the morning they open
- Episode 1 is free
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WC
Wayne Champion
Your narrator · Certified Human VoiceWayne gives every liar in the office their own voice, from Cairo's perfume to Gutman's "By Gad, sir."
First printed in five monthly parts in Black Mask, September 1929 to January 1930, so readers waited for each one. That's how this series works too. Public domain in the United States since January 2026.
