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The Long Goodbye (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Raymond Chandler
Book Description Marlowe befriends a down on his luck war veteran with the scars to prove it. Then he finds out that Terry Lennox has a very wealthy nymphomaniac wife, who he's divorced and re-married and who ends up dead. and now Lennox is on the lam and the cops and a crazy gangster are after Marlowe. Reader Reviews Philip Marlowe . . and 'all my children.', August 19, 2003 Reviewer: Larry Scantlebury from Ypsilanti, MI United States Certainly The Long Goodbye is one of the top ten mysteries written, maybe even the top three. It has that tremendous yet subtle notion of pathos, loyalty, the purity of truth, (perhaps uniqely American) 'stick-to-it-iveness' or relentlessness, and a gritty, scarred, hero. And certainly Marlowe is the father of a whole bunch of bastard children. Spenser, the oldest, his brother Dave Robicheaux, the darker cousins Lucas (Davenport) and no, not Elvis but Joe Pike. Juxtapose that against the beauty and insight of Chandler's writing, his voice resonating with the truth about, say relationships. He writes about the war-hero, shattered after the trauma of death, through the words of his wife: "I love my husband. Not as a young girl. That's passed. That man I loved then died in the war. But I love him." The names and notions intertwine. Marlowe's loyalty to Terry Lennox is the stuff of The Knights of the Realm. The women are tough and knowledgeable. The time is past. Or is it? Top shelf writing from a man who wrote little but said a lot.
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