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Well, I like the genre, generally--I'm not so much a fan of the hardboiled detective, but I like the seediness and the moral morass and the femme fatales in noir, though I don't know quite why. Maybe it's all the old B&W Warner Bros. movies I watched growing up.
I think it's aged well enough. I was quite willing to enter into its world; what didn't impress me in The Maltese Falcon was the character Sam Spade and the writing--I didn't like how Spade seemed all-knowing (e.g., immediately realizing Brigid's initial story was fake, based on what, exactly?).
If anyone's interested in a feminine take on noir, I recommend Megan Abbott's first four novels: Die a Little, The Song Is You, Queenpin (the best of the four), and Bury Me Deep. (Her later novels are terrific but not noir.) Abbott also wrote The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity and Urban Space in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir, which mostly examines James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, and Chester Himes, but includes several references to Hammett and The Maltese Falcon.
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