It is said that Chandler himself said that he cannibalised his short stories to write [some of] his novels. With this in mind, and having just recently read all seven of his [completed] novels back-to-back, I thought it'd be interesting to see just what exactly was borrowed/lifted from the short ...
Like all of Raymond Chandler’s novels, The High Window features private detective Philip Marlowe as first-person narrator reporting events unfolding as he attempts to crack a case in sun-soaked Los Angeles. I marvel at his perceptiveness and cleverness. Can anybody surpass Marlowe in his ability ...
Definitely my favorite Chandler, beating out The Big Sleep by a star and more than a dozen memorable lines. This book is absolutely soaking in quotables and may have the best prose of any noir I’ve ever read. Add in a classic main character and a solid plot and you have a nice shiny bundle of wi...
Ένας Raymond Chandler στα καλύτερά του. Trouble is my business. Η ιστορία γράφεται τον Αύγουστο του 1939 και δημοσιεύεται στο Dime Detective. Είναι το δεύτερο περιοδικό με το οποίο συνεργάζεται στενά ο Chandler μετά το Black Mask. Τον ίδιο χρόνο εκδίδεται το πρώτο του βιβλίο “The Big Sleep” και ο...
I've read this book now three times in as many months. More times in as many years. The first time I read it, years ago, I was nineteen. Much older now, I had to come back with a different perspective and try to see what Raymond Chandler was really up to. Entertaining the reader wasn't the point....
The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler is the fifth novel in the series featuring hardboiled private detective Philip Marlowe. It seems that I read one Marlowe novel a year, so this is my book for 2013. What I will remember most about The Little Sister is my sense that this is the “odd” one. Th...
Jonny Dalmas, Privatdetektiv, gönnt sich unweit seines Appartements in einer Bar ein Bier. Doch urplötzlich wird er Zeuge eines völlig überraschenden Mordes: Ein offenbar völlig Betrunkener erschießt einen Gast, der kurz zuvor hereinkam und nach einer Frau suchte, und flüchtet unerkannt. Mit sein...
Good grief. What a difference 18 months or so makes. I read The Big Sleep and i enjoyed it up to a point but found it a souffle overly egged on the 'witty and offbeat images' ingredient but this one, Playback, I absolutely loved. There is still the wit, the clever descriptions, the tension and my...
A collection of eight stories not previously reprinted, because Chandler had re-used much of the material in later novels (for some reason, he felt compelled to abandon material that had been thus "cannibalized") (according to the Introduction). So readers of his novels will notice extremely fami...