The Long good bye (1953)

Junto a los habituales tics satíricos y cínicos del inconfundible detective Marlowe, en los que le reconocemos como el sujeto, el héroe moral y físico al que estamos habituados, Chandler le somete a una jugada inesperada que le metaboliza en objeto, en víctima, en su búsqueda irrenunciable al descubrimiento de la verdad. En el fresco social de triunfadores y marginales, de víctimas y corruptos, Marlowe, y el lector que le acompañe, siempre encontrará un momento para disfrutar de un café recién hecho o de un "gimlet", del calor húmedo de los bulevares, de la silueta de las colinas…

Just so good. Loved it. Good story, though it did become a bit convoluted and long, but super characters and dialog - just to cherish. This one is about Terry Lennox, a drunk fellow that Marlowe happens to feel sorry for who leads into a complex story of WWII, Mexican prisons, Las Vegas rough guys, brutish cops, a sui generis blonde. A sad, mature book. ( )

I probably like this one so much b/c Robert Altman made a film version in 1973 'modernized' to bring it into 'hippie' times & starring Elliott Gould as Detective Philip Marlowe. It's perhaps somewhat surprising that 'Hollywood' & I coincide in our tastes in mystery writers: many films have been made of Hammett & Chandler stories. There's even a whole bk called "[b:Raymond Chandler|2052|The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe, #1)|Raymond Chandler|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1371584712s/2052.jpg|1222673] & Film" wch I have in my library but haven't read yet. At least 2 novels by Patricia Highsmith & 2 by James Ellroy have been turned into films too. ( )

Terry Lennox, married to Sylvia, daughter of a multimillionaire needs help to escape to Mexico. He calls upon friend Marlowe for help. It seems his wife has died, and he is the assumed guilty party. But when Lennox is found dead, Marlowe is drawn into discovering the truth.
Excellent, well-written, a delightful re-read. ( )

"The bar was pretty empty. Three booths down a couple of sharpies were selling each other pieces of Twentieth Century Fox, using double arm gestures instead of money. They had a telephone on the table between them and every two or three minutes they would play the match game to see who called Zanuck with a hot idea. They were young, dark, eager, and full of vitality. They put as much muscular activity into a telephone conversation that I would put into carrying a fat man up four flights of stairs. There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream. The customer was middle-aged, handsomely dressed and drunk. He wanted to talk and he couldn't have stopped even if he hadn't really wanted to talk. He was polite and friendly and when I heard him he didn't seem to slur his words much, but you knew that he got up on the bottle and only let go of it when he fell asleep at night. He would be like that for the rest of his life, and that was what his life was. You would never know how he got that way because even if he told you it would not be the truth. At the very best a distorted memory of the truth as he knew it. There is a sad man like that in every quiet bar in the world." ( )