It’s been a few months since Jeopardy! dipped into the Hammett clew pile, a sprawling mass of info and allusion that might well go on forever.
On Monday October 11, they offered in the Double Jeopardy round a $400 clew, in the category National Literary Titles:
A detective is hired to track down the missing sister of the secretive Miss Wonderly at the beginning of this hard-boiled novel.
Contestant Jonathan Fisher buzzed in and said, “What is The Maltese Falcon?”
None other.
Now, did the sudden reappearance of Hammett on the Jeopardy! stage give Fisher just the edge he needed to unseat 38-day champion Matt Amodio? A little noir mojo?
That’s what happened, in any event. I held back on mentioning it because in my experience many of the Giant Killers only win for that one game, or sometimes carry a second. I wanted to see if Fisher would be a flash-in-the-pan, and so far he’s held down the champeenship for three games.
Man, what if he beats Amodio’s winning streak?
Stay tuned, right?
