From left: Richard Baird and Louis Lotorto in "The Maltese Falcon" at Laguna Playhouse (Photo by Aaron Rumley) Using more contorted similes and metaphors than an English professor teaching romantic poetry to hard-boiled detectives, “The Maltese Falcon” at Laguna Playhouse delivers chuckles with a side of noir. A new commissioned play by Matthew Salazar-Thompson that recently premiered at North Coast Rep, “The Maltese Falcon” sends up Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel while remain

“Murder on the Links” is a 1923 Agatha Christie mystery featuring that most particular of detectives, Hercule Poirot. Brilliantly adapted...