MARLOWE IS BACK – IN A CLASSIC THRILLER NO CHANDLER AFICIONADO WILL BE ABLE TO RESIST…When Raymond Chandler died in 1959, he left behind an unfinished Philip Marlowe novel. Now, thirty years later,has become a complete work, thanks to the inspired writing of Robert B Parker, the foremost contemporary exponent of the Chandler style.As the novel opens, Marlowe is married and bored. Naturally enough, he starts up a detective agency, and within hours he has alienated solid citizens, tangled with the cops and been hired by a local gangster to find a gambler who's skipped out on a debt.And this is only the beginning. Before Marlowe brings in his man, he discovers another side of- a dark and dangerous place, where desperation makes men and women lead secret lives – and, if that fails, the only alternative is murder…
The Big Sleep was an instant success when first published in 1939. It centers around a paralyzed California millionaire with two psychopathic daughters; he involves Marlowe in a case of blackmail that turns into murder.
The Long Goodbye (1953) is a milestone in the genre. This novel demonstrated for the first time that hard-boiled fiction could serve as a vehicle for social comment and critique. While the apparent plot is slower paced and less metaphoric than Chandler's previous novels, the revealed plot shows him using his own life as a material, an autobiographical turn that prepared the way for Ross Macdonald.Marlowe meets and befriends English expatriate Terry Lennox, a drunk who has been abandoned by his ex-wife Sylvia, at The Dancers Club. Months later he spots Lennox drunk again, runs him home, and ...
