Malta and the investigator

I can't see the word "Malta" without my mind flashing to "The Maltese Falcon". Bogart is a legend for many, and a veritable icon for me; the Black Bird is where it all started. The Black Bird, clutched in Captain Jacobi's dying hands, symbolized the essence of the thriller, and the drive to investigate those dark secrets, the hidden fabulous treasure from the hermetic pits of history that men and women would pay for, seduce and kill to get.

Malta may have only been the pretext that Dashiell Hammett needed to string together his tale of betrayal and intrigue, but it has a magical feel nonetheless. Today, Malta is a sleepy Mediterranean inkblot, scarcely a severed appendix hanging off the belly of Sicily. Proud fortresses lean against ornate gothic churches that stand on the toes of ancient Knights Hospitaler chapter houses and elbow aside the five-story balcony-laden stone façades that give the streets of Malta their charm.

Me, I like to feel like the hard-boiled private dick, even if the mysteries I seek to unravel consist only in finding out what frescoes, votaries and shrines are in the next church on our circuit, or which crenellated wall will most fire my medieval imagination. There may be no treasure and no femme fatale at the end of my quest, but then again no one is trying to kill me either. Valetta, Malta's capital, offers many time-worn secrets for the curious traveller to discover, with none of the dangers one associates with a quest born of intrigue and cupidity. I swam through those enchanting streets in a dream, and even managed for a while to forget the call of the waiting Cuba Libres.