Inverarity is not a Scottish village

Marlow goes looking for a doll named Velma. Wacky hijinks (actually, beatings and murders) ensue.

Eight years ago Moose Malloy and cute little redhead Velma were getting married - until someone framed Malloy for armed robbery. Now his stretch is up and he wants Velma back.

PI Philip Marlow meets Malloy one hot day in Hollywood and, out of the generosity of his jaded heart, agrees to help him. Dragged from one smoky bar to another, Marlowe's search for Velma turns up plenty of dangerous gangsters with a nasty habit of shooting first and talking later. And soon what started as a search for a missing person becomes a matter of life and death....

( Reads like all Chandler stories - smooth, similar to the last, still just as good. )

Also by Raymond Chandler: My reviews of The Long Goodbye and The Big Sleep.

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My complete list of book reviews.

A hard-boiled detective story about gangsters, rich people, dames, drunks, adulterers, and writers.

Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to his only friend in the world: Philip Marlowe, Private Investigator. He's willing to help a man down on his luck, but later, Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty.

Marlowe finds himself drawn into a sordid crowd of adulterers and alcoholics in LA's Idle Valley, where the rich are suffering one big suntanned hangover. Marlowe is sure Lennox didn't kill his wife, but how many more stiffs will turn up before he gets to the truth?

( Philip Marlowe learns the rich are not like us. )

Verdict: A classic detective story that holds up well if you liked hard-boiled noir. Few writers have really improved on the classics of the genre, and Raymond Chandler is fun to read, as Philip Marlowe hobnobs with the rich and crazy and spars verbally with cops and gangsters. The Long Goodbye is a good introduction to the character even if it isn't the first in the series. 9/10.

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My complete list of book reviews.