The Big Sleep

The first novel about legendary private eye Phillip Marlowe is also the first mystery novel that ever made me cry when I turned the last page.

Marlowe’s poetic narration and bruised outsider’s voice offer a cynical but also strangely hopeful perspective on both the shady underworld types and the corrupt high-society folk who fill the “mean streets” down which Marlowe must walk (in Chandler’s much-quoted phrase).

Why hopeful when death–the big sleep–awaits us all? Because a man of principles like Marlowe can still bring a measure of justice in this unjust world, sometimes just by bearing witness.

Two aspects of this novel really shine: Philip Marlowe, the fearless, dogged private detective with unshakable integrity; and 1930s Los Angeles, with its wide variety of neighborhoods, landscapes, and the diverse socioeconomic classes who inhabit those places.

Throw in an intriguing mystery plot, and it’s easy to see why Chandler is considered a master of the genre. But mostly, I kept reading to see how far Marlowe would go to unravel the puzzle and how he would maintain his principles in a world that, by and large, doesn’t share them.

It’s rare to find a mystery in which a character… show more.

Chandler’s novel, first published in 1939, is a touchstone for anyone writing detective fiction.

Never mind that private detective Philip Marlowe never actually solves anything.

In addition to the famously unsolved murder that Chandler brushed off when told about it, there are plot holes you could drive a Buick Roadmaster through, and prose occasionally edged in purple. Never mind its shortcomings, The Big Sleep overall remains intoxicatingly hard-boiled, a much-imitated classic of the genre.

I have gone back to it many times since I first read it, seeing its flaws but loving its tough-as-nails sensibility. It played an important part… show more.

Most don’t think “comedy” when they think of Chandler, but I include his debut here to honor the sly wit behind the hard-boiled PI voice Chandler famously invented. Before him, nobody wrote sentences like, “Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead,” but after him, every crime writer wanted a sprinkle of that. Of course, Chandler’s the all-time, undisputed champion of the simile, so adroit, so confident, that it’s okay if sometimes it feels like he’s playing beyond our grasp. “She… show more.

The week I started working as a private investigator, a friend gave me The Big Sleep. I fell in love – with Raymond Chandler. To me, as a new PI, every word rang true. The book is set in Los Angeles, starring detective Philip Marlowe – “I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it” – and I read it in Los Angeles, too, amid the sunstruck tangle of ambition and envy and deception and longing that makes the city such an easy place, I was learning, to be a private eye. Marlowe’s droll… show more.

This wasn't the first crime mystery novel I read, but The Big Sleep hooked me on Philip Marlowe as a character and the genre as a whole. Raymond Chandler created one of the most striking and engaging narrative voices in the superbly cynical and sharp-tongued Private Investigator. Marlowe's dialogue and observations have a poetic grittiness about them that reflect his toughness and the seedy world he’s steeped in, and yet, through his interactions with other characters and the values he espouses, I warmed to him as a big-hearted and sensitive character who is hard not to admire and want to… show more.

Another timeless novel which, like The Big Sleep, was made into a classic film. Both movies starred Humphrey Bogart, in the first case as Sam Spade in 1941 and then as Philip Marlowe in 1946. This is Chandler’s first novel in which he introduced Los Angeles private investigator, Phillip Marlowe. When a dying millionaire needs help, Marlowe answers the call and changes forever the course of crime fiction. As with all of Chandler’s books, the plot is murky, but that doesn’t really matter. You read Chandler for the writing itself, which is beautiful and impossible to imitate.

Philip Marlowe is a cynical, hardened, private detective hired by wealthy, but ailing, General Sternwood. The job is to “take care of” a pornographer who has been blackmailing the General with scandalous pictures of his youngest adult daughter. This book shows the tawdry side of 1930s Los Angeles – pornography, blackmail, gangsters, prostitution, drug-dealing – and is filled with strong, believable characters, each with their own ulterior motives. The novel is dark and sleazy and Marlowe becomes disgusted by the wickedness and corruption he sees all around him. The final reveal will surprise the reader. The Big Sleep is the… show more.

Even when you know how this tale ends, following the events in this author's snappy prose is a compelling delight. A complex tale related by private investigator Philip Marlowe, who is hired by a dying oil millionaire to rescue his wild younger daughter from a blackmail scheme. Other cast members include the second daughter, her missing husband, a bookseller who openly deals in pornography, gangster Eddie Mars and his missing wife, a dead—or murdered?—chauffeur, and many others. The novel has been adapted several times, the best being the 1946 movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and the 1978 movie… show more.

Despite writing mid last century, I see Raymond Chandler as the first really modern crime writer. He once famously commented “… down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” and Philip Marlowe admirably fulfills these qualities. Gritty problems, witty dialogue, glamorous but unstable women and men without scruples people his books in gripping prose. Read The Big Sleep to dive with Philip Marlowe into an underworld of corruption, danger, and crime. Thank goodness Marlowe is on our side! I read Chandler long before my character David Hidalgo appeared in… show more.