The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Knopf (1939), 277 pp.
Tall and husky P. I. Philip Marlowe has been summoned to the estate of General Guy Sternwood in the Hollywood hills. Sternwood is around eighty, confined to a wheelchair and in poor health. His two daughters, however, are in their twenties, in great shape and very much on the go. The younger one, Carmen, is in trouble again, having signed some suspicious IOUs to book dealer Arthur Gwynn Geiger. Sternwood wants Marlowe to make sure that Geiger isn’t a blackmailer. The older daughter, thrice-married Vivian Regan has another mystery on her mind. She thinks the detective has been hired to track down her missing husband. Marlowe soon discovers that Geiger’s business is a front for a rental library of expensive pornography. While staking out Geiger’s house he sees a flash inside then hears gunshots. Marlowe enters to find Carmen stoned and nude and Geiger quite dead.
This is the first of Chandler’s novels and the one that launched the career of one of the world’s most famous fictional detectives. As he is throughout the series, Philip Marlowe is narrator as well as protagonist. It’s his narration, rather than his acuity in solving crimes, that sets him apart. He regales readers with clever descriptions, sardonic commentary, off-kilter similes and snappy repartee. At the same time he establishes himself as a righteous loner whose cynicism cannot mask his quest for justice. The plot twists and turns. The characters, a pretty disreputable bunch, come and go. Everything moves swiftly. The book’s not perfect, however. Marlowe sometimes seems dedicated to the point of prudishness. And the plot point dealing with the chauffeur remains (famously) unresolved. But those criticisms are minor and shouldn’t discourage potential readers. The book’s reputation is well earned.
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