Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Raymond Chandler's The High Window.
Book Review
The High Window, Raymond Chandler, Random House, New York, 1992
Phillip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's classic noir hard-boiled private detective, forever literarily associated with Los Angeles and its means streets, is right at home here in his search, at the request of a dipsy dowager looking for solutions on the cheap and with no questions asked , for the inevitable “missing” (person or thing, fill in the blank). In this case a missing thing, a coin, a rare gold doubloon that has been stolen by, she claims, her no good gold-digging, newly-minted daughter-in-law. Along the way to the “truth” old Phillip finds more "conveniently" dead bodies, which may or may not connect in with the case, more kooks and more smarmy police officers than one can shake a stick at. The only things missing in this one are that whiff of perfume from some remote icy dame that has Phillip in a dither and ready to "chase after windmills" for and he takes no saps to the head. He will thus live to fight another day. There is plenty of sparse but functional dialogue, physical action and a couple of plot twists, particularly around the identity of the killers of the various dead bodies.
Have no fear, however, the intrepid Marlowe will figure it out in the end and some kind of 'rough' justice will prevail. At this point in the Chandler Marlowe series our shamus has been around the block more than a few times but he still is punching away at the 'bad guys' and the absurdity of the modern world. How does this one compare with the other Marlowe volumes? Give me those background oil derricks churning out the wealth while looking for General Sternwood's Rusty Regan (and that whiff of perfume mentioned above from the dizzy Sternwood daughters) in The Big Sleep or the run down stucco flats in some shady places in pursuit of Moose's Velma (and her whiff od perfume too, come to think of it) in Farewell, My Lovely any day. There no one to really root for here (except, a little, the much put upon dowager's secretary/ “wounded sparrow”, Merle). Nevertheless, as always with Chandler, you get high literature in a plebeian package.
Book Review
The High Window, Raymond Chandler, Random House, New York, 1992
Phillip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's classic noir hard-boiled private detective, forever literarily associated with Los Angeles and its means streets, is right at home here in his search, at the request of a dipsy dowager looking for solutions on the cheap and with no questions asked , for the inevitable “missing” (person or thing, fill in the blank). In this case a missing thing, a coin, a rare gold doubloon that has been stolen by, she claims, her no good gold-digging, newly-minted daughter-in-law. Along the way to the “truth” old Phillip finds more "conveniently" dead bodies, which may or may not connect in with the case, more kooks and more smarmy police officers than one can shake a stick at. The only things missing in this one are that whiff of perfume from some remote icy dame that has Phillip in a dither and ready to "chase after windmills" for and he takes no saps to the head. He will thus live to fight another day. There is plenty of sparse but functional dialogue, physical action and a couple of plot twists, particularly around the identity of the killers of the various dead bodies.
Have no fear, however, the intrepid Marlowe will figure it out in the end and some kind of 'rough' justice will prevail. At this point in the Chandler Marlowe series our shamus has been around the block more than a few times but he still is punching away at the 'bad guys' and the absurdity of the modern world. How does this one compare with the other Marlowe volumes? Give me those background oil derricks churning out the wealth while looking for General Sternwood's Rusty Regan (and that whiff of perfume mentioned above from the dizzy Sternwood daughters) in The Big Sleep or the run down stucco flats in some shady places in pursuit of Moose's Velma (and her whiff od perfume too, come to think of it) in Farewell, My Lovely any day. There no one to really root for here (except, a little, the much put upon dowager's secretary/ “wounded sparrow”, Merle). Nevertheless, as always with Chandler, you get high literature in a plebeian package.
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