Raymond Chandler | Fenlandphil's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Raymond Chandler’

6 Jan

Can’t Judge A Book By Its Murder by Amy Lillard, a review.

Posted by fenlandphil in Amy Lillard, Blind date with a book, Can't Judge a Book by its Murder, Niche Comics Book Shop, The Write Stuff. Tagged: Book, Book Review, Dashiell Hammett, Huntingdon, Raymond Chandler, Writing. 1 comment

Now and then, when I am in Niche Comics Bookshop, I take advantage of their blind date with a book offer. The book in question is gift-wrapped with a small note attached giving a brief, tantalising description of the book written on it.

I misread the note, thinking it was a writing group the note referred to, not a book group. I paid my fiver and took the book home with me to read. I must say at this point that I am a member of The Write Stuff, a writing group that meets monthly on the first floor of Huntingdon’s Niche Comics Bookshop. Apart from myself, I wouldn’t describe any of The Write Stuff members as eccentric, a quality of the book club’s members mentioned on the book’s descriptive label.

The story is set in a Sugar Springs, Mississippi, bookshop, which has its own café attached. This joint enterprise, Books and More, is owned and managed by Arlo Stanley and Chloe Carter (Arlo Books, Chloe café). A former local boy, Wally Harrison, now a best-selling author, is due to launch his new book at Books and More. However, the discovery of his corpse lying face down on the pavement outside Books and More has dealt the planned book launch a lethal blow.

Worse is yet to come: Chloe is investigated for Wally’s murder. Arlo and the book group ladies set about uncovering the truth about Wally’s untimely death.

It was an interesting read but not quite up to Raymond Chandler’s or Dashiell Hammett’s standard.

8 Aug

Diamond and the Eye by Peter Lovesey, a review.

Posted by fenlandphil in Bath, Book Review, Diamond and the Eye, Peter Diamond, Peter Lovesey, Stan Getz. Tagged: books, California, Dashiell Hammett, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler, Sam Spade. 5 comments

I think I have read most if not all Mr Lovesey’s, Peter Diamond books. This one is a little different to any of the others in that it features a Private Eye, Johnny Getz, (no relation to Stan Getz the jazz saxophonist). Diamond meets Johnny Getz while he is trying to enjoy a quiet drink at the end of a working week in his local. Getz is working for a new client, the daughter of an antiques’ dealer trying to trace her missing father.

Diamond reluctantly gets involved in Getz’s inquiry when with his client they investigate the break in at the shop that had prompted the hunt for the antique shop’s owner. The story is a convoluted one, entwining the world of art, high class consumerism, journalism and of course murder.

Johnny Getz the Eye in question, models himself on the fictional thirties and forties private eyes created by among others, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. However, the mean streets Getz pounds, are not those of forties California but the somewhat grander ones of present day Bath.

Diamond doesn’t welcome the intrusion of this reincarnation of Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade, as Getz acknowledges in his own account of events. However, eventually an uneasy alliance is formed to solve the case.

I enjoyed the story, although I found the point of view of Mr Getz a little difficult to cope with to start with. It will be interesting to see if Mr Getz turns up in future books.

A quick, absorbing and enjoyable read; well done Mr Lovesey.

21 Jul

Devil in a Blue Dress written by Walter Mosley’, a review.

Posted by fenlandphil in Blood Sympathy, Book, Devil in a Blue Dress, Reginald Hill, Walter Mosley. Tagged: Detective crime fiction, Devil in a Blue Dress, Los Angeles, Luton, Raymond Chandler, Walter Mosley. 5 comments

**Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley**

I had read only one other crime novel featuring a black hero, Reginald Hill’s, Blood Sympathy. As far as I can tell Reginald Hill was white. Blood Sympathy is set in Hill’s version of Luton England and was first published in 1985, Devil in a Blue Dress, 1990. Blood Sympathy’s, Joe Six Smith and Devil in a Blue Dress’s, Easy Rawlins have both lost their jobs forcing career changes onto them. Similarities end there.

Walter Mosley is a year younger than me, neither of us, at 72 and 73 years old respectively, were alive in 1948. Mr Mosley no doubt had family to tell him how things were then. From what I am told by friends who have visited the States more recently, the attitudes and prejudices mentioned within Devil in a Blue Dress haven’t changed much and certainly haven’t gone away.

The author has no doubt had his thinking about Los Angeles, at the time of the book coloured by contemporary literature and films made in that period. In terms of American detective crime fiction Raymond Chandler is probably a go-to point of reference, both in time and location. That most of Chandler’s novels have been made into films, with Playback the only exception, reinforces this view.

Devil in a Blue Dress, is written in the first person, that of Ezekiel Rawlins, “Easy” Rawlins, the hero. Recently unemployed, war veteran, Easy is engaged to search for a white woman Daphne Monet, who is known to frequent the coloured jazz clubs and bars of Los Angeles. Easy’s, employer, Dewitt Albright, a white man is introduced to Easy by his bar owner friend and ex boxer, Joppy.

In 1948 as many places were segregated and Albright feels he can’t search for Daphne himself, because of this colour bar existing at the time. Easy knows the places where Daphne might be found, is familiar with the people who frequent them and is of course the right skin colour to visit these places without a problem. Devil in a Blue Dress shares characteristics of US detective fiction of the period but the perspective from someone of black ethnicity is different. The body count is high, the plot is interesting the ending, unpredictable.

I thought Devil in a Blue Dress was an excellent read and I really enjoyed it.

18 Feb

Blood Sympathy by Reginald Hill, a review

Posted by fenlandphil in Blood Sympathy, Book Review, Joe Sixsmith, Raymond Chandler, Reginald Hill. Tagged: Book, Book Review, Dashiell Hammett, Luton, Private Investigator, Raymond Chandler. Leave a comment

This, so far the only one of Reginald Hill’s books I have read.

Despite watching Dalziel and Pascoe on television I wondered whether Hill was of Caribbean heritage, a quick search on Google revealed that he wasn’t. Hill’s choice of a black hero, dealing with the racism of some police, made me think that he could have been a black writer.

It is difficult to write about a Private Eye, Raymond Chandler is always looking over your shoulder. Without the influence of him and Dashie;l Hammett; the genre I’m sure would be less widely populated.

This is Joe Sixsmith’s first outing, forced by redundancy as a result of his employer’s downsizing and middle age, to find something new, Joe embarked on a career as a Private Investigator. Having spent a lifetime in engineering, this was a strange choice.

Joe is a loveable character, harassed by his anxious Aunt Mirabelle, longing to see her nephew settled into the bosom of a suitable wife. His aunt’s matchmaking is just one of many problems; Joe has to deal with as he stumbles his way through cases of drug smuggling and murder.

I do not know if Hill’s fictional Luton is close to the reality of Bedfordshire’s, the one with an airport bearing the same name but it is nonetheless one that works.

I enjoyed this book immensely and will seek out more of Joe Sixsmith’s adventures.

4 Sep

The Big Sleep

Posted by fenlandphil in Film, Film review. Tagged: Film, Get Carter, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Los Angeles, Michael Caine, Novel, Payback, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep. 3 comments

The Big Sleep 1978 poster

Recently I watched the 1978 film remake of the Big Sleep. There has probably been a bigger waste of acting talent than that squandered by Michael Winner but nothing comes to mind.

Bogart as Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as Vivian Sternwood Rutledge in Howard Hawkes 1946 film of the Big Sleep.

The original 1946 version starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall was obviously made at a time nearer that of the novel, (published 1939). Raymond Chandler’s novels like the Sherlock Holmes stories of Conan Doyle occupy a particular time and place, in my opinion, this is, even more, the case with Chandler.

Setting the action of the Big Sleep in 1970s England didn’t work for me. In the Big Sleep, Chandler’s writes of Los Angeles, Hollywood, California and America at a time before it was touched by war, in the aftermath of Prohibition during the dying embers of the Depression. His novels are steeped in that sense of time and place. The characters who populate his stories are products of this period and like some fine wines, they do not travel well.

Michael Caine as Carter

A similar situation but travelling geographically in the opposite direction was the remake of Get Carter. Set originally in 1970’s Newcastle with Michael Caine playing Carter the 2000 remake with Sylvester Stallone in the title role was a poor shadow of the original. Get Carter was as was the Big Sleep comfortable in its own time and place the lack of Geordie accents didn’t diminish its quality. Stallone’s outing couldn’t and didn’t match Caine’s London hard man. Caine was totally credible, it is, in my opinion, the best ever British crime film.

Chandler’s only novel not to be made into a film. Playback is set in the early fifties and a different part of California. I hope it will find its way onto the silver screen, set in its correct time and place.

Fenlandphil's Blog A blog from the low country

Posts Tagged ‘Raymond Chandler’

Can’t Judge A Book By Its Murder by Amy Lillard, a review.

Diamond and the Eye by Peter Lovesey, a review.

Devil in a Blue Dress written by Walter Mosley’, a review.

Blood Sympathy by Reginald Hill, a review

The Big Sleep

Search

Archives

Blogs I Follow

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Recent Posts

Copyright Notice