Raymond Chandler is that rare sort of novelist who creates a world that sings with individuality while inviting others to join the fun. That, perhaps, is Chandler's greatest talent--he makes his world inviting while never pandering to prurient or common tastes. In A High Window, Philip Marlowe, Chandler's famous American icon of cynicism and subtle honor, is tasked with finding a rare coin and the person who stole it. His client is a bossy, asthmatic, hulk of a woman who downs glass after glass of port and who doesn't mind telling Marlowe her low opinion of his character and skills. Of course, she's wrong. And she's hiding all sorts of secrets of her own. As in all Philip Marlowe adventures, the ride is always more fun than the destination. When you read Raymond Chandler, you're lovingly dumped into a landscape filled with bums, dames, rich psychotics, corrupt cops, and sleazy hotel managers. And those are the ordinary people in his novels. Read A High Window. Get out your trenchcoat. Be sure to pack a .45. You're going to "noir" town.

Donald Gallinger is the author ofThe Master Planets

Raymond Chandler is that rare sort of novelist who creates a world that sings with individuality while inviting others to join the fun. That, perhaps, is Chandler's greatest talent--he makes his world inviting while never pandering to prurient or common tastes. In A High Window, Philip Marlowe, Chandler's famous American icon of cynicism and subtle honor, is tasked with finding a rare coin and the person who stole it. His client is a bossy, asthmatic, hulk of a woman who downs glass after glass of port and who doesn't mind telling Marlowe her low opinion of his character and skills. Of course, she's wrong. And she's hiding all sorts of secrets of her own. As in all Philip Marlowe adventures, the ride is always more fun than the destination. When you read Raymond Chandler, you're lovingly dumped into a landscape filled with bums, dames, rich psychotics, corrupt cops, and sleazy hotel managers. And those are the ordinary people in his novels. Read A High Window. Get out your trenchcoat. Be sure to pack a .45. You're going to "noir" town.

Donald Gallinger is the author ofThe Master Planets

I love Raymond Chandler. And Marlowe, the joke cracking private eye who's tough on the outside and golden on the inside and who would be cliched except he's the original everyone else copied...it's vintage noir, hard-boiled action, the world without frills, a trail of murders and blackmail and robbery. It's flawed the way America's underbelly is flawed but it's always clear where Marlowe's sympathies lie...with the poor, the lost, the wicked, the desperate doing all they can to get out of poverty's trap. But he takes everyone as he finds them and gives them their due. It's a fast-paced quick read with suspenseful twists and turns that spin you through an L.A. that is still recognizable, and definitely the L.A. that I love.

Phillip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's classic noir hard-boiled private detective forever literarily associated with Los Angeles and its means streets is right at home here in his search for a missing family heirloom thought to have been 'taken' by an errrant family member. As always there are plots within plots and it is many a false lead and bump on the noggin' before the intrepid Marlowe puts this one to rest. As usual there is plenty of sparse but functional dialogue, physical action and a couple of plot twists, particularly around the motives of the parties involved. And where does this novel stand in relationship to the other Marlowe epics? Give me those background oil derricks churning out the wealth while looking for Rusty Regan in Big Sleep or the run down stucco flats in pursue of Moose's Velma in Farewell, My Lovely any day. Nevertheless, as always with Chandler, you get high literature in a plebian package. Read on.

Wealthy widow Mrs. Elizabeth Murdock hired Philip Marlowe [These scenes show the literary flourishes necessarily absent from his short stories.] Mrs. Murdock wants Marlowe to retrieve a valuable item that was stolen by a member of her family; nobody is to be arrested (Chapter 2). This is a rare gold coin: the Brasher Doubloon. Mrs. Murdock believes her daughter-in-law took it when she left her son; she had been a night club singer. Marlowe begins to investigate the leads, and meets various people. Chandler's literary descriptions of the people provide background on the individuals. Complications arise from his interview with these various people. Soon a dead body is found (another private investigator). A package arrives for Marlowe - it has one gold coin (Chapter 12). But Mrs. Murdock no longer wants the coin (Chapter 13). The coin dealer is found dead (Chapter 14). The police think Marlowe is holding out on information on that private investigator (Chapter 16).

Chandler shows his skill at dialogue at the Idle Valley Patrol (Chapter 17). Linda returned to her old job. She said she didn't take the rare coin. Marlowe warns Mrs. Murdock about the police investigation and learns how the coin was returned (Chapter 20). There is a surprising confession to a murder (Chapter 23). [In those days you could park a car in the street and leave the keys in the lock (Chapter 28)!] Marlowe overhears a conversation about Louis Vannier (Chapter 30). Marlowe surmises what happened (Chapter 33). And there is another surprise (Chapter 34)! The last chapters tie up the loose ends.
This is a good story but I thought the ending was weak. Chandler uses the language of those days. The dollar figures date this novel.

Private eye Philip Marlowe is hired by the rich Mrs Elizabeth Bright Murdock to find a rare gold coin, the Brasher Dubloon, which is missing from her late husband's collection. Mrs Murdock suspects the thief to be her daughter-in-law Linda. However, this being a Chandler story, things are a lot more involved than that, and Marlowe has to figure his way through some intricate and unforeseen twists and turns, including a series of murders.

I suppose you could criticise this novel as a formulaic Chandler piece: the rich get into trouble; they and their children are unstable, burdened or cursed by their wealth; murders occur; connections between the characters are discovered and become more complicated; the resolution at the end is swift. Nonetheless, you know what you are getting and it's enjoyable stuff for all that: the dialogue is as good as ever and the period feel is of course authentic. Good fun.

G Rodgers

We're catching up on Chandler's private-eye Philip Marlowe novels published in the 1940's, having read "Poodle Springs" (his last work, actually finished by Robert Parker) and "The Big Sleep", his first and perhaps most well-known entry in the set, possibly due to the movie with Humphrey Bogart. The book is classic Chandler: beautifully descriptive prose almost wasted on the seedy characters that populate the storyline. The plot kicks off with a wealthy but crotchety old woman hiring Marlowe to recover a valuable gold coin she is sure was stolen by her now missing daughter-in-law. As Marlowe learns more about the matter, a young guy starts tailing him, then admits to being a fellow private dick who might need Marlowe's help with a case. Soon that guy turns up dead; in fact, throughout the tale Marlowe has a nasty habit of finding dead bodies, which only serves to exasperate the police, whom our leading man tends to frustrate by refusing to part with what he knows about whom.

In the end, of course Marlowe figures it all out, but not before some surprises bend the plot this way and that. [We won't spoil what the novel's title implies...] One would not suspect this novel is some 60 years old; that it so readily entertains is certain testimony to its withstanding the aging process. Chandler's fine writing skills, bordering on literature, as usual tend to create a screenplay in our heads for us, which adds to the enjoyment. Despite all the drinking, smoking, and "easy" women at hand, this easy read is another fine mystery by this famous author of nearly a century ago.

The High Window is a fast paced, intricately plotted story inhabited by an abundance of interesting and colorful characters.
Once again, Raymond Chandler has succeeded in painting very vivid pictures of the various locales depicted with his unique brand of highly descriptive prose. A relatively short novel, The High Window is packed with page after page of interesting twists and turns, memorable characters and sharp dialogue.
Hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe is, as always, hard drinking, wise cracking and supremely self confident. A walking, breathing paradox, he adheres to a very high minded code of honor when it comes to protecting client confidentiality yet is not above tampering with evidence.
What starts off as a rather mundane search for a missing rare coin quickly becomes much more complex. Murder, blackmail and the psychological abuse of a vulnerable young woman all play a role in the compelling plot. This novel should appeal to all fans of detective fiction as well as to those who appreciate good writing regardless of subject matter.

Raymond Chandler's "The High Window" is catchy; far more so than any similar novel penned by Mickey Spillane or James M. Cain. It has all the noirish elements needed to be a great read: a rare coin is the perfect MacGuffin; a sultry, adulterous blonde provides the jaded sexual appeal; an emotionally-abused young lady is the damsel in distress; a psychotic villain is flawlessly despicable and the labyrinthine plot is well-nigh impossible to predict until the very last page.

The above having been said, this well-written novel is not without its faults. My three qualms lie with what essentially was the waste of a spectacular character (Eddie Prue), the retread of "The Big Sleep" formula and the lack of suspense.

Addressing the first qualm, a subtle tension builds between the one-eyed Eddie Prue -- an emotionless bagman -- and wise-cracking Marlowe for the latter half of the novel. This mounting tension is left entirely unresolved and, thus, is dissatisfying.

The second qualm is that the Mrs. Murdock character seems to be carbon copy of General Sternwood from "The Big Sleep." They share far too many characteristics: a very wealthy recluse, physically disabled, world-wearily disillusioned, hampered by ailments, grim outlook, wayward offspring, etc. It seems that Chandler could have fleshed her character's uniqueness out just a tad more.

Lastly, the lack of suspense throughout the novel may bore the casual reader. If it was not for Chandler's lively prose, I would have nodded off. The only time in which I was worried as to Marlowe's well-being was when he first hears Prue's voice in a very well-written piece.

Despite these trivial flaws, it is a first rate novel and well-worth picking up.

In Chandler's third novel, Philip Marlowe is hitting his stride. He's getting his life under control, he's right on top of the bad guys, and his honorable intentions save the day.

In this outing, Chandler is hired by a rich woman to track down a missing coin. The woman assumes that a misbehaving family member has run off with it, but of course the story ends up far more complex than that and Marlowe wends his way through gritty LA streets in search of the truth.

Marlowe's penchant for doing the right thing is even more in evidence here, as he works to help out characters that many times don't realize they need help. He does it not for fame or fortune, but because it's the right thing to do.

Chandler's writing style shines with its usual brilliance, and he crafts his characters with an easy hand. He has brought Marlowe along from his initial hard-drinking despair into a detective who - buoyed with past successes - is now more comfortable with himself and taking better care of himself. The wit crackles, and the novel is as enjoyable and entertaining as anything Chandler has written.

In this one, Marlowe seems to have gotten a lot smarter than he was in FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, a novel in which he was so drunk most of the time that you had to wonder how he managed to survive, let alone adequately "investigate" anything. But in THE HIGH WINDOW, Marlowe is on the ball. He takes a job for a wealthy, twice-widowed matron, to track down her missing daughter-in-law who, the matron believes, absconded with a precious gold coin from her deceased second husband's collection. The widow's son, abandoned husband of the missing woman, is in the dark and wants to know what gives. He chases Marlowe, as does another detective who is apparently on another, related case. Marlowe out-slicks these guys, along with a semi-tough actor-turned-gangster and his menacing bodyguard, managing to figure out what it's all about, with the murders piling up and the cops breathing down his neck. He even uncovers a murder he wasn't supposed to and proves his good-heartedness in the process by straightening out a very unhealthy family situation. Although he continues to down his liquor as he pushes through the mires of this case, it feels more like social drinking this time, rather than the obsessively self-destructive bingeing seen in the earlier novel. In fact, though Marlowe's employer may be dissatisfied with the result of the investigation she has initiated in a moment of pique, we are not, for he solves the crime he was called in for and sets things that have been very much askew to rights in a most un-Marlowe like manner, leaving matters better than he found them, despite three murders and a darkly tangled familial history. -- SWM