The High Window by Raymond Chandler. Knopf (1942), 240 pp.
Philip Marlowe goes to Pasadena to meet with rich and nasty widow Elizabeth Murdock. She wants him to retrieve a valuable coin, the Brasher Doubloon, which she believes has been stolen by her missing daughter-in-law, former club singer Linda Conquest. He also encounters mousey assistant Merle Davis, former secretary of Horace Bright, Mrs. Murdock’s first husband, who fell to his death eight years before. Marlowe moves into action. He tracks down coin dealer Elisha Morningstar and looks up Linda’s ex-roommate, Lois Magic. She is now married to casino owner Alex Morny and having an affair with flashy scoundrel Louis Vannier. Leslie Murdock, Elizabeth’s effete son, also shows up to say he owes Morny a large gambling debt. While Marlowe is trying to digest all of this, he starts to worry about the guy who has been tailing him in a sand-colored coupé.
Chandler is famous for the droll descriptions and clever repartee of his first-person narrator, Philip Marlowe. This book, his third novel, maintains his reputation for entertaining prose. It’s just fun to read. It may, however, offer too much of a good thing. Minor characters receive an unwarranted amount of attention. Some conversations go on too long; others seem completely unnecessary. As a result, the plot, which is complicated enough to require serious tending, sometimes gets lost. The doubloon, for example, is not on Marlowe’s mind through most of the story. Chandler pulls everything together in the end, but only in a long and static disquisition, the need for which he satirizes before he begins. Readers expecting a tightly coiled, action-packed detective story are likely to be disappointed. Those looking for literary entertainment, however, should have a good time.
Comments