by Raymond Chandler
This tome ain't Shakespeare but it ain't dimestore pulp either. It's a basic yarn about a PI, Phillip Marlowe, who meets up with a friendly drunk and the drunken upper crust he wallows in. Marlowe is a standup guy who'll go to the wall for a friend and through that wall for justice. When he helps his pal get out of a tight spot he gets pinched by the button men and sent to the bird cage for his troubles. Then he gets warned off by a 2-bit confidence man, some dupe at the DA's office and anyone else who has a skeleton to bury in a shallow grave in Mexico. Of course this only drives Marlowe to dig deeper, and soon he's in a mix dirtier than the smog that covers LA like a yellow blanket of corruption. Soon enough he's in a tighter spot than a car in a compactor - he can't lay off the search because that's not his way. But if he goes too far...well, let's just say no one will miss another 2-bit dick gone missing.
No PI story would be complete without dames and this one has em in spades, but they don't pull the story down into those trash romances ladybirds love to read. Chandler does a job developing Eileen Ward, first as an unbelievable angel, but she slowly loses her wings every time Marlowe looks at her through his jaded eyes and new information makes her more human. Other birds flit in and out of Marlowes orbit and a few settle in for awhile, but you know Marlowe's not the kind to settle down, buy a house, have 3.5 kids and BBQ on Saturdays. He is as hard boiled as they come and fends of anyone and everything that might make him compromise his steel strong code of ethics and morality.
The best part of this book is the writing. Chandler uses the jargon of the day liberally and it brings us back into the underside of the early '50's Los Angeles. And it's inspired many imitators in the decades since (mostly failed imitators, like this review).
Alex Todd, Adult Services
