This is Chandler’s best. It is a must read for any fan of detective novels. Just re-read it on the plane down to Buenos Aires. I bet the hayday of that town was similar to the time chandler writes about around LA in the 30s. Lots of dark bars with shady people and dangerous women in long silk dresses. Some of them are still there at Asia De Cuba http://www.asiadecuba.com.ar/ Saturday night. One of the things I like the best is Chandler’s description of characters. One of my favorites is a secretary in this book:

“While she was looking up numbers and telephoning hither and yon I looked her over. She was pale with a sort of natural paleness and she looked healthy enough. Her coarse-grained coppery blond hair was not ugly in itself, but it was drawn back so tightly over her narrow head that it almost lost the effect of being hair at all. Her eyebrows were thin and unusually straight and were darker than her hair, almost chesnut color. Her nostrils had a whitish look of an anaemic person. Her chin was too small, too sharp and looked unstable. She wore no makeup except orange-red on her mouth and not too much of that. Her eyes behind the glasses were very large, cobalt blue with big irises and a vague expression. Both lids were tight so that the eyes had a slightly oriental look, or as if the skin of her face was naturally so tight that it stretched her eyes at the corners. The whole face had a sort of off-key neurotic charm that only needed some clever makeup to be striking.
She wore a one-piece linen dress with short sleeves and no ornament of any kind. Her bare arms had down on them, and a few freckles.”

I rate 5 of 5 stars.

By reading other reviews, I found out that this Chandler thriller was “lost” for some time. Just finished it on a trip to Argentina (13.5 hours in the plane you know). This is Chandler’s final novel. While I had read many others, I hadn’t read this one. Still working through the full set of Chandler in Vintage Crime/Black Lizard that I bought in NY a couple months ago.

Playback is a bit darker than his others. Marlowe is getting older and feels it. He gets knocked down more. He also spends intimate time with the pretty woman (a rarity). This part is done in classic Chandler style, no details just “and in the morning” thing. The attention confuses Marlowe:

“What a lot of different girls you are. Now you’re making like a moll. When I first saw you, you were a quiet well-bred little lady. You didn’t like dreamboats like Mitchell making a pitch at you. Then you bought yourself a pack of cigarettes and smoked one as if you hated it. Then you let him cuddle you – after you got down here. Then you tore your blouse at me ha, ha, ha, cynical as a Park Avenue pet after her butter and egg man goes home. Then you let me cuddle you. Then you cracked me on the head with a whiskey bottle. Now you’re talking about a beautiful life in Rio. Which one of you would have her head on th enext pillow when I woke up in the morning?”

I have met women like that.

So I am working my way through the cache of Ross MacDonald novels I found in Brooklyn. The Drowning Pool was a pleasant surprise. While I was underwhelmed by the first MacDonald I read, this one kept me reading straight through. No wonder a band took the name also. Lew Archer is every bit the mature selfless stuborn high character detective you expect. And he takes his punches as well.
MacDonald creates great descriptions of his characters. Take this one:

“I looked at him, first at the steady black gun. He was slender and tall, pinched at the waist by overelaborate tailoring, heavily padded at the shoulders. The hair on top of his head was thick and black and glossy, but it didn’t match the gray hair over is ears. I said: “You’re showing a little middle-aged sag yourself.”

Read this one. I rank 4 of 5 stars.

So I am working my way through the cache of Ross MacDonald novels I found in Brooklyn. The Drowning Pool was a pleasant surprise. While I was underwhelmed by the first MacDonald I read, this one kept me reading straight through. No wonder a band took the name also. Lew Archer is every bit the mature selfless stuborn high character detective you expect. And he takes his punches as well.
MacDonald creates great descriptions of his characters. Take this one:

“I looked at him, first at the steady black gun. He was slender and tall, pinched at the waist by overelaborate tailoring, heavily padded at the shoulders. The hair on top of his head was thick and black and glossy, but it didn’t match the gray hair over is ears. I said: “You’re showing a little middle-aged sag yourself.”

Read this one. I rank 4 of 5 stars.

I was in Brooklyn last week shopping in a used book store. They had a complete edition of all Raymond Chandler’s books! Wow, what a find. Right below them was a complete set of Ross MacDonald books. While a big fan of Chandler, I had heard of Ross MacDonald in the same breath but not read him. So I got that set too. I better take lots of plane rides. Finished this one first. Good hard boiled detective writing. Nothing special and memorable, but a good read. I would say I still prefer Chandler, but I will continue to read MacDonald. 3 or 5 stars.

the most important book on energy you can read this year.

I read so much stuff that makes my brian hurt that I occasionally need something that just flows. I usually turn to mysteries for that. In this case, i was intrigued by a story set on an Atlantic island of the east coast. I have spent summers on Block Island which it sounds like this island could be. There is a very bright line between year round’ers and summer people. Winthrop weaves an engaging story out of the unlikely mixing of these two worlds. complete with the guy who can’t take the pressure and explodes during the long winter. It could be called a chick book in that it is written by a woman and the two main characters are women, one of whom is struggling with a failing marriage. If you are in any trouble at all with your marriage, DO NOT offer this book to your spouse. Hide under the blanket and read it yourself.

I am a huge Raymond Chandler fan. I have read all of his books (even the non-fiction). And a couple of biography’s. I have a picture of him in my house done by a very famous East German artist. The only problem is that he is dead and not writing anymore. So I was in a bookstore on Lincoln road in Miami Beach yesterday and at the checkout stand was this book. Basically an editor took the time to go through Chandler’s books and pull out quotes on Philip Marlowe’s life philosophy. Here are some I love:

On Blondes:
“It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.”

On Needs:
“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance. I needed a vacation. I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.”

On Crime:
“That’s the difference between crime and business. For business you gotta have capital. Sometimes I think it is the only difference.”

if you need a different perspective on life and a bit of lift, pick up this little book.

Finally got to see it last night. Underworld Evolution delivers as a sequel. You have to like the genre which I do. Kate is amazing. The fight scenes are amazing. There is something oddly appealing about a woman in all black leather with a gun and vampire teeth. No big moralistic tale or deeper meanings (that I bothered to pay attention to), just rocking good versus evil entertainment. Well done.

Still waiting for Underworld: Evolution which comes out next weekend, left the very slim pickings for a movie this weekend. But Fandango pointed me to this new one from Pierce and it looked interesting. A middle aged contract killer who looses his grove. Entertaining and very funny. I rate 3 of 5 stars. Worth seeing in theatres.