Philip Marlowe is an asshole.

That’s what I found myself thinking again and again as I read this book. He was constantly getting mad at someone. Sometimes the characters totally deserve Marlowe’s anger. Other times, I thought, really, what are you so mad about?

There are probably few fictional detectives that are as well known or that have inspired as many movies and TV shows as Philip Marlowe, and Raymond Chandler is the undisputed king of LA private detective fiction. Still, this book left me feeling a little meh. The premise is that Marlowe befriends a man who is down on his luck and married/divorced/still with a wealthy socialite of questionable morals. The whole book seems to be a depiction of angry sex-crazed wealthy people who may or may not be sleeping with each other’s wives.

The opening of the book really dragged on and on, and the characters seemed more than a little ridiculous. The mystery itself wasn’t really all that much of a mystery, and the conclusion, well, it wasn’t so far-fetched that I found it hard to believe as much as it was rather ho-hum.

There are better Marlowe books and better detective fiction out there. This one is considered a classic, but for the life of me, I couldn’t really tell you why.

My Take: I’d skip this one unless you’re determined to read every Marlowe book in print.