Only to Sleep: Chandler's Philip Marlowe Returns for Encore

Coming July 2018

Lawrence Osborne brings one of literature's most enduring detectives, Private Investigator Philip Marlowe, back to life for one last adventure

It takes a lot to surprise me these days, but I was literally gobsmacked when I read a recent email from Penguin Random House offering me an ARC for a new Philip Marlowe novel to review.

There hasn't been a new Marlowe novel since Robert B. Parker completed in 1990 Raymond Chandler's Poodle Springs, the eighth Philip Marlowe novel, three decades after Chandler started it in 1959. But, there soon will be when Only To Sleep by Lawrence Osborne is released this July.

Who among us true blue hard-boiled fans haven't wished we could read a new Philip Marlowe novel just one more time. If you're one of those fans, you will soon have the opportunity. Lucky me. I'm reading it right now, and I'll be publishing my review right here at Best Crime Thriller Books in the next week or so.

Here is a brief synopsis...

The year is 1988. The place, Baja California. And Philip Marlowe—now in his seventy-second year—is living out his retirement in the terrace bar of the La Fonda hotel. Sipping margaritas, playing cards, his silver-tipped cane at the ready. When in saunter two insurance men dressed like undertakers, with a case that has Marlowe's name written all over it.

Set between the border and badlands of Mexico and California, Lawrence Osborne's resurrection of the iconic Marlowe is touted as an unforgettable addition to the Raymond Chandler canon.

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T. J. O'Sullivan Private Investigator Series, Book 2

 

 

Can't wait for Honolulu Blues, the second installment in the T. J. O'Sullivan Private Investigator series? Then click on the image or the link below to read a FREE sample, the first three complete chapters.

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Flashback Friday: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

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If you love Robert B. Parker's Spenser, get acquainted with Philip Marlowe, the inspiration behind Parker's creation.

Raymond Chandler is widely considered the successor to Dashiell Hammett as the world's premier hard-boiled detective fiction writer. Some say that Chandler's character, Los Angeles gumshoe Philip Marlowe, is the archetypal private eye, more iconic and more enduring than any of the private eye characters created by not only Hammett, but the likes of Ross MacDonald, and Mickey Spillane.

Marlowe, like Hammett's Sam Spade, and Robert B. Parker's Spenser, is a man of principle. Despite his tough exterior and rough manners, Philip Marlowe follows a code of honor that stands out as endearingly old-fashioned in a corrupt, often vicious, world. Chandler's novels can be considered morality tales. Beneath all the roughhousing and sexual tension can be detected a critique of American society, run by greed and big money, that makes men like Marlowe necessary.

Chandler's writing is characterized by arresting lines that set a scene, the throwaway wisecrack, novel descriptions of dead men, and creative accounts of what it's like to take a bullet and or have a punch land square on your face. Most of all though, the greatness of Chandler is found in his wonderful dialogue. Perhaps no one in real life ever talked that concisely and cleverly, but when you read it you hope maybe they did.

This week, Flashback Friday focuses on Chandler's most famous novel, and his first, The Big Sleep (1939), a notoriously mixed-up story, which nonetheless rewards successive readings. If you aren't familiar with the hard-boiled tradition, this is the novel to plunge into to get a sense of the genre's possibilities and difficulties.

In The Big Sleep, a dying millionaire hires private eye Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, and Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.

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Welcome to the first installment of "Flashback Friday" where each week we will be showcasing a great crime thriller from the past.

Unless you're a diehard fan of Raymond Chandler, and/or Robert B. Parker, you may have never heard of Poodle Springs, Chandler's seventh and last Philip Marlowe novel. I've been a fan of both for years and even then had never heard of the book until I stumbled across it quite by accident one Saturday afternoon while browsing the stacks at the Flagstaff, Arizona Barnes & Noble. If you've not heard it, there is an interesting story behind the book, especially the Robert B. Parker connection.

When Chandler died in 1959, he left behind the first four chapters of Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe's seventh caper. The book had the working title, The Poodle Springs Story. It wasn't until 1988, on the occasion of the centenary of Chandler's birth, that Robert B. Parker was asked by the estate of Raymond Chandler to complete the novel.

Parker did an exceptional job picking up the story from the slim opener and writing a thriller to rival his own bestselling Spenser novels. Poodle Springs reads just like any of Chandler's great Marlowe novels which shows just how much influence Chandler had on Parker's writing style.

In Poodle Springs, Marlowe is newly wed to wealthy Linda and at home in her luxurious house in Poodle Springs (pseudonym for Palm Springs) but refuses to be a kept man. He opens up a private eye shop in Poodle Springs on the second floor above a gas station. He is hired by a local gambler to trace Les Valentine, a photographer who has welshed on a $100,000 bet.

Marlowe questions the missing man's bibulous wife Muffy, daughter of a multi-millionaire. Muffy's vague answers give nothing away. Marlowe is compelled to drive back to Los Angeles's grubby streets, looking for information.

Acting on a tip, Marlowe visits the office of a man named Larry Victor,' and finds it vacant except for the dead body of a blonde model. Marlowe deduces that Larry Victor is actually Les Valentine and suspects Valentine was framed for the murder, probably by the gambler's mob bosses. Marlowe stays on the case in the city at the risk of not only his own life but his new marriage too. Sustaining tensions, writing in tune with the period and delivering a knockout finale, Parker does nobly by the great Chandler.

If you enjoy those wonderful "hard-boiled" detective novels of days gone by, you'll want to pick up a copy of Poodle Springs by Raymond Chandler and RobertB. Parker.