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The High Window (Philip Marlowe Series Book 3) New e. Edition, Kindle Edition
A CLASSIC NOVEL BY THE MASTER OF HARD-BOILED CRIME, THE HIGH WINDOW IS RAYMOND CHANDLER'S THIRD STORY FEATURING LACONIC PI PHILIP MARLOWE.
'He lay crumpled on his back. Very lonely, very dead. The safe door was wide open. A metal drawer was pulled out. It was empty now. There may have been money in it once.'
Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe's on a case: his client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband's collection. That's the simple part. It becomes more complicated when Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead. That's also unlucky for a private investigator, because leaving a trail of corpses around LA puts cops' noses seriously out of joint. If Marlowe doesn't wrap this one up fast, he's going to end up either in jail or in a wooden box in the ground . . .
'Chandler's books should be read and judged, not as escapist literature, but as works of art' W.H. Auden
'Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph
'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times
'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess
- ISBN-13978-0140108934
- EditionNew e.
- PublisherPenguin
- Publication date7 July 2005
- LanguageEnglish
- File size2578 KB
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Product details
- ASIN : B002RI9O9Q
- Publisher : Penguin; New e. edition (7 July 2005)
- Language : English
- File size : 2578 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 272 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: 183,891 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 1,545 in Hard-Boiled Mysteries
- 2,628 in Hard-Boiled Mystery
- 4,570 in Fiction Classics (Kindle Store)
- Customer reviews:
About the author
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was a British-American novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at age forty-four, Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but Playback have been made into motion pictures, some several times. In the year before he died, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. He died on March 26, 1959, in La Jolla, California.
Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is considered by many to be a founder, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers, of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction. His protagonist, Philip Marlowe, along with Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective," both having been played on screen by Humphrey Bogart, whom many considered to be the quintessential Marlowe.
Some of Chandler's novels are considered important literary works, and three are often considered masterpieces: Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Little Sister (1949), and The Long Goodbye (1953). The Long Goodbye was praised in an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery".
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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The High Window comes across as a much less convoluted story than the first two books, and we get a glimpse at Marlowe's sympathetic side when he takes an interest in the novel's damsel in distress. That said, we still get to see plenty of sass from the wise-cracking shamus as he goes on the trail of a missing coin, almost literally tripping over dead bodies along the way.
Compared to the previous two books Chandler seems to have found his feet with this one, and I personally found his writing style more refined and more confident. The story seemed to flow more readily, and encounters that initially appear to be random and unconnected to the main case soon turn out to be deliberate and very much connected. By the end of the book the gal's been saved, the coin's been found, and even if not all of the killers are brought to justice, the whole mess has been wrapped up in a very neat bow by our hero.
Out of the three Marlowe books I've read so far I would certainly count this as my favourite, and based on this would probably recommend it as the first one to read for anyone unfamiliar with Chandler's work.
Raymond Chandler had a particular style of writing, very much in the mid 20th century idiom of detective street talk. Somehow though it becomes enchantingly addictive the more I have read it. There are always plenty of twists turns as the stories unfold.
Suffice to say I recommend these books to other readers looking for a good read.
I guess I'm a little too familiar with his other tales but this is superb.
Highly recommended.
I didn't engage with this book as much as the others, probably because there really aren't any engaging characters in it - only Marlowe,going about his work. Chandler's wonderful writing is as rich as ever, with some terrific descriptions of people and places. But after a while I got ground down by the pervading cynicism. Maybe that's the desired effect of the book. I won't give the plot away, but there is one innocent character (though not totally) that Marlowe goes out of his way to help and take care of. Chandler shows that under Marlowe's hard shell, lurks a big heart. I got lost in this plot, which I don't mind when it comes to crime fiction, but I never really found my way back with it either. Still, it was worth reading just for Chandler's style - that never disappoints.
Steinbeck is the only comparison I can make. Both us understatement to create humour.
Delicious.
Can't get enough.
And I can hear Humphrey Bogart's droll voice speaking it all.
Perfection.
Top reviews from other countries
With that caveat, Raymond Chandler is the most thoughtful and entertaining writer of hard-boiled fiction. There really is no close second. You can flip through any one of his books to a random page. If you read that page and the next, you will find a well-written line. A great metaphor or just a really memorable string of words. You think as you read them that you wished you'd said that. And you imagine yourself saying the words yourself in your own world. The other writers in this genre are lucky to have one or two great lines in their entire book.
Chandler's plots are complicated but rewarding to pay attention to. If you have not yet jumped into the world of private eye Phillip Marlowe you are in for a treat. You can start with his first, The Big Sleep. I really like this third novel of his, The High Window. Those two are his best, but his worst is much better than anyone else's.
The print edition of this book, pictured is just fine. Same for the kindle. I've read them both and will read High Window again and again.