The summer I graduated from college my boyfriend and I had an abrupt, ugly breakup, and I moved out of the apartment we'd shared and into a studio on the other side of town. It was the first and only time I ever lived by myself. The apartment was in a large, smelly building downtown, and had a Murphy bed, a clawfoot bathtub, and an antique apparatus to speak with any visitors who buzzed in from downstairs. I don't know if the phone thing worked, as I had very few people stop by while I lived the...

In addition to the later novels, this volume contains some very interesting letters, and a few reflections on the art of writing the murder mystery. There are, however, quite a few typos - which is astonishing when one considers that this is supposed to be a 'corrected edition' and that it contains in the back of the volume (1066f.) a list of "typographical errors" that were fixed from the original printings. In fact, and for this reason, it took me quite some time to realize that these WERE, in...

"Murder, which is a frustration of the individual and hence a frustration of the race, may have, and in fact has, a good deal of sociological implication. But it has been going on too long for it to be news. If the mystery novel is at all realistic (which it very seldom is) it is written in a certain spirit of detachment; otherwise nobody but a psychopath would want to write it or read it." - "The Simple Art of Murder"More like an averaged out "4.5 out of 5" rating, but hey, who's counting.Let's...

This review pertains to the novel: "The Lady in the Lake".This is my first Raymond Chandler novel but I intend to become thoroughly well acquainted with Philip Marlowe this year.I like Chandler's writing technique and I appreciate the Marlowe character. The plot structure in this novel is fairly straight forward (a friend has warned me that Chandler's plots can be quite convoluted) although there is a surprise I never saw coming.BTW, I have to give a big shout out to the Library of America. This...

This book took me by surprise. Chandler is an author who I like and to some degree study because of his early influence on the hardboiled genre. I was just looking for a quick and inexpensive way to read my last unread Philip Marlow story, Playback. I didn't realize there was an anthology like this. If I have a problem, its that there are so few Selected Notes and Essays.Firstly, this Library of America book edition is beautiful. I've become accustomed to purchasing or reading books which are ei...

A rare collection with no weak links. The Long Goodbye and Double Indemnity are familiar to even casual fans of noir and I think I prefer the screen treatment of Indemnity to the book (rare, I know). The first two novels are both prime Chandler, if not as well known as some others. Playback was a pleasant surprise, if just for the ending / postscript.(view spoiler)[At the end Marlowe's old flame, Linda Loring, reappears from Paris to re-establish their relationship. This made me laugh, as it set...

The novels in this collection have all the strengths of the earlier, but add a greater level of character and emotional impact. I had previously read The Long Goodbye, which I love, but of the others The Lady in the Lake seemed almost as good.The Long Goodbye seems to be generally regarded as Chandler's best, and it lives up to that reputation for me. It illustrates the argument of several of the essays included at the end of the volume, that a story dependent on a labyrinthine plot, in which th...

Absolute A+ This is a must have book for anyone interested in writing. Contained in a single volume are: four amazing novels (The Long Goodbye may be his greatest work), a screen play written with Billy Wilder for James Cain's Double Indemnity, Chandler's wildly abusive and wonderful essays on writing, and select letters (which are formidible and long and full of appropriate amounts of self doubt to make even the weakest among us take heart). Have fun! - Watch the movie after reading the book......

I've read and reread all the stories, now with this book I will have some essays too. That's how I can give it a 5 star rating without having read every page. And now I have. Chandler is like fine music. You listen to it, you think you know it. Later you listen again [in this case read again] and it is like listening to it for the first time.That's a real gift

absolutely fantastic example of detective fiction. every line marlowe spits out is self-depricating, witty, and sassy as all get out. dirty, fun fiction.

He's a master of the crime novel and one of the best writers at succinct, lively description I've ever seen. I'd love to be half as good.

Chandler is one of my favorite writers. Like top 3. But upon reading the essays and letters that ended this volume I've come to realize he was bitter old bastard. The world is a cesspool and it's peopled with utter morons. He was as arrogant as he was mean. While his famed PI, Marlowe, sees the world as cynically as he does, Marlowe has a saving grace: he's better than the world. In one of the letters, Chandler says something along the lines of, even though the world has lost its integrity that

I just reread all of Raymond Chandler’s novels and here is a quick summary:What stays the SAME-Smoking everywhere, homes, clubs, bars, restaurants, cars-Rich women always are the killers-The coffee is always good -Alcohol all the time. Marlowe imbibes continuously, but only passes out when he wants/needs to-Men must be tough: muscles must develop from work-boxing etc, not from rich-man gym exercise or tennis -Writing is tight; -Murders are not messy, conversations are.-There is no middle class:

Just a quick note: this review only applies to the story I just finished reading in this collection, “The Long Goodbye,” not the entire collection.I’ve read two of the other novels in this collection previously.Like all of Chandler’s mysteries, this one is gritty, filled with great prose, convoluted and complex… But even given the fact that his stories wind and twist in so many unexpected ways, there’s a real twist at the end I just did not see coming.This particular story also opens the door fo...

Chandler establishes the bar that all other hard boiled mystery writers must meet.

Four late novels, a screenplay, and selected essays and letters by the master of noir detective fiction.

Classic crime stories. Felt like watching Bogie and Bacall all over again.

This is going to have to be a five-in-one review for (i) The Lady in the Lake; (ii) The Little Sister; (iii) The Long Goodbye; (iv) Playback and perhaps some of the essays in this collection. I loved how this volume I picked up at the library is one of those navy blue cloth-bound Library of America editions. And I suppose that there's an inscription just inside the cover that reads "With the friendship of the people of the United States of America, US Embassy Singapore" signifies Chandler's stan...

Who knew that I would develop such a Raymond Chandler obsession through my reading for the Vintage Mystery Challenge? I tend to read British mysteries more often and I almost never read anything set in LA but here I am, still going. And I'll probably add extras on to my list, since I have the Library of America collection of his later novels checked out from the library right now.Anyway, I enjoyed The Lady in the Lake because it took Marlowe out of the city a bit and had a more appealing member

Excellent--After reading six Chandler novels to date, I can conclude that he is awesome. In my humble opinion, his performance first peaks at Farewell My Lovely - which I think is an even better work than The Big Sleep - slumps with The High Window and The Lady in the Lake, and then recovers to the same height with The Little Sister and The Long Goodbye. I didn't bother to read Playback in this collection for reasons of circumspection based on other reviews, but I thoroughly enjoyed his hardboil...

"If I wasn't hard, I wouldn't be alive. If I couldn't ever be gentle, I wouldn't deserve to be alive." -Philip Marlowe, "Playback" by Raymond Chandler That quote to me quantifies the character of Philip Marlowe, the hard-boiled detective who is the protagonist in the thread of Raymond Chandler’s noir novels contained in this collection. “The Lady in the Lake”, “The Little Sister”, “The Long Goodbye”, “Playback”, the script for “Double Indemnity”, and selected letters and essays that Chandler wr...

In this novel, Chandler's protagonist, private detective Philip Marlowe, is hired by Derace Kingsley to discover the whereabouts of Crystal, his reckless wife (who was said to have run off with her boyfriend). Marlowe's search takes him to Kingsley's lake house at Little Fawn Lake, where Crystal was last seen. It is the discovery of another missing woman's body in the lake that sends this story catapulting towards confusion.The Lady in the Lake was written by Raymond Chandler, well-known as a su...

1) The Lady in The Lake - Philip Marlowe ventures into the mountains, far from the city and finds more mystery than he bargained for. / My Take: This one surprised me a little bit. Loved the small town sheriff in it.2) The Little Sister - Mousy little Orfamay Quest (Wow! What a name!) from Kansas wants to find her brother, Orrin. He's disappeared into Bay City (a nasty, corrupt place in Marlowe's world). Could he be the infamous ice pick murderer or is he being stalked by the real murderer? 3)Th...

I was never into pulp novels until I read this collection. This edition is a great introduction to Raymond Chandler and especially the Marlowe character. I expected straight ahead genre fiction when I started reading, but by the end of The Long Goodbye I was amazed that not only were all the detective genre elements really well done, but Phillip Marlowe had become one of my favorite characters in literature. It's easy to view him as a sad sack, but his insistence on honesty and loyalty to friend...

The Lady in the Lake - one big twist was easy to see early-on, but still good character work and plenty of surprises woven into this one. I give this one a big thumbs up.The Little Sister - wasn't as good. The mystery's hooks were a little too tenuous, the characters a tad too crime-noir cliche. Still, it's well written and not without charm, but personally, I don't consider it one of Chandler's better efforts.The Long Goodbye - I liked some things about this one - the old way buddy angle, the c...

The Long Goodbye – *** Like all the great mysteries, this is an exciting read. I had a hard time setting it down (though it is a pretty long novel for a mystery). The praise for it is much deserved. It is a twisting and rambling story full of oddball characters and strange situations. I have to admit, though, I have a hard time understanding anything Marlowe does. You want characters – and action – to be unpredictable, but to some extent you want to know the character and understand his or her m...

More like an averaged out "4.5 out of 5" rating, but hey, who's counting.Let's just rank this:5 stars:1) The Long Goodbye (also, arguable, Chandler's masterpiece)2) Double Indemnity (co-writer, Billy Wilder)3) The Lady in the Lake (just a sensational murder mystery with a bevvy of awesome supporting characters)4 stars:4) The Little Sister (certainly one of the three great openings to any book ever)5) Playback (slight, but also includes many great insights; a significant and thoughtful-minor work...

What can I say? The Lady in the Lake is just about a perfect exemplar of it's genre with the hard boiled detective - always down on his luck and taking a beating but still going on and sticking to his morals, a femme fatale, red herrings, just wow. Any anthology containing that is almost guaranteed a perfect rating. Some of the other stories aren't quite as strong, but all very good. The selected essays and letters also included appear very self-congratulatory and conceited. Not worth reading. T...

I chose to write hardboiled detective mysteries a couple of decades ago after reading Raymond Chandler, who I think took the sub-genre to a high literary level. My writing had been mostly short stories in the literary or magical realism categories, but an occasional mystery. Ultimately I have written 4 Mike Angel PI detective novels in the hardboiled but Chandleresque vein, so I'd say he is my idol & mentor. My books are available on Amazon Kindle, B&N, and Smashwords as ebooks. I am now rereadi...

Rereading the Little Sister and The Long Goodbye- last time around all I got was bitterness and cynicism expressed through tropic unnuanced one-liners, unfiltered by the editorcensors (sadly). After a few years and having read Ross MacDonald's later novels a couple times, it's easier to read this as a demystification of the genre and maybe even the moral lifestyle. In a way, it's a refreshing departure from the Puritanical bends of his earlier novels, but Little SIster is pretty mediocre, both a...