This book was written in 1939 and is the grand-daddy of all detective stories. It features Philip Marlowe, a private investigator in the style immortalised by Humphrey Bogart: a cool and tough talking ladies’ man who is undaunted by anything and anybody. This is a very enjoyable book. It’s clearly dated in some parts, but the dialogue is sometimes so funny and even charming, it doesn’t matter. Philip Marlowe is the lone wolf detective that so many subsequent characters have been modelled on. He likes women and liquor, has been to jail and doesn’t do divorce business, as he states in the introduction. In this book, he takes on a case which starts out as blackmail, but soon becomes about murder and mayhem.
The story certainly has plenty to keep you entertained, but it’s the writing that does it for me. Marlow is so cool, so unimpressed by everything that the dialogue and his description of people and events makes me laugh: “Fine. Let’s dip the bill. Got a glass? The purring voice was now as false as an usherette’s eyelashes and as slippery as a watermelon seed.” Read and enjoy.