Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Noir Fiction from One of the Originals

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

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The Big Sleep is Raymond Chandler’s first book featuring hard-boiled private investigator Philip Marlowe. The plot involves luscious dames, glowering gangsters, and a missing husband who is possibly on the lam. The absolute best thing about this book was the writing. Chandler has a knack for completely original turns of phrase. For example: The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. The General spoke again, slowly, using his strength as […]

The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers.

The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

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I might be alone here, or I might be the victim of a weird physical ailment (I’ll explain in a bit), but I don’t think I liked this one very much. This is Raymond Chandler’s next to last novel, and it’s somewhere around 100 pages longer than any of his previous works. It’s famous among other things for giving the world a solid recipe for a gimlet (2 oz of gin, 2 oz of Rose’s Lime juice, sometimes bitters). It’s also the basis for a […]

Still Waters Run Deep

The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler

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Philip Marlowe is hired by a wealthy businessman to find his wife who supposedly eloped to Mexico with a lover. While investigating the couple’s isolated vacation home, a body is found in the nearby lake but it’s apparently not the missing woman’s. This is a rather classic noir with all elements present: a femme fatale, corrupt policemen, infidelity, drugs, and, of course, murder. The L.A. heat is unbearable, and people’s emotions run as high as the temperature while trying to hide all sorts of secrets. […]

I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear.

The High Window by Raymond Chandler

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This is the third or fourth Raymond Chandler novel (out of seven) and it’s among the best of the ones I’ve read so far. My favorite is still The Lady in the Lake because the actual case is so good. But here, we just have Philip Marlowe being the best Philip Marlowe he knows how to be. His wisecracks are often hilarious and his tone is so dry. The mystery itself is about a missing rare coin and eventually the death of a numismatist, who is […]

Family Ties

The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler

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Philip Marlow is a hard boiled private detective in Los Angeles who could use a case. He could use a lot of things, but he’d settle for a case. Until one morning when a plain, proper girl from Manhattan Kansas walks into his office asking him to find her brother. This is a great, pulpy mystery set in Hollywood in the 40s. Chandler is well into his groove with this one and Philip Marlow gets dragged through hell before he can untie all the knots […]

More Marlowe

The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

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“Organized crime is just the dirty side of the sharp dollar.” “What’s the clean side?” “I never saw it. Let’s have a drink.” If quotes like that excite you, and you tend to view the world through a haze of cigarette smoke and gimlet fog, then this book could very well be for you. The Long Goodbye is Raymond Chandler’s sixth novel featuring the jaded private dick with a heart of…silver, Philip Marlowe. It’s not the best in the series, but it’s towards the top. […]



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