The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

This is the one you've been waiting for:
Detective Sam Spade is a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. When his partner is killed during a stakeout, he is drawn into the hunt for a fantastic treasure with a dubious provenance—a golden bird encrusted with jewels. Also on the trail are a perfumed grifter named Joel Cairo, an oversized adventurer named Gutman, and Spade’s new client Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. (Amazon)

The novel is the basis for the movie with Humphrey Bogart—"The stuff dreams are made of"—and of the Netflix series, Monsieur Spade.