When Sam Spade gets drawn into the Maltese Falcon case, we know what to expect: straight talk, hard questions and no favours. 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 AND 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...