Some years ago I came across a critic who said that Raymond Chandler wrote like a fallen angel. I wish I could remember his name because I think that's a pretty good description of Chandler's writing. An angel because of the quality of the writing itself. A fallen angel because of the gritty subjects and characters about whom he wrote.THE HIGH WINDOW is no exception. Vintage Chandler doing what he did best.

The Shop-Soiled Galahad"The High Window" (1942) is the third of Raymond Chandler's novels featuring the detective Philip Marlowe. Marlowe tells the story in his own inimitable voice. The action of the story takes place over a three day period in 1941 in Los Angeles. Marlowe is faced with a confusing series of crimes including murder, counterfeiting, robbery, and blackmail.The plotting is difficult and cumbersome in following the different crimes; but all is explained, perhaps too neatly, in the

For those of you who haven’t yet read Chandler – and I won’t question why – I’m here to tell you, the man can write. You read him for the words, for the atmosphere, not for plot. The High Window itself has nothing special to recommend it; it’s another instalment, one of many roughly equally as good. (First time around The Lady in the Lake was my favourite; my wife, who read them all this year, liked The Long Goodbye.) But it’s the one I re-read last week (cos it’s tight, short, cuts to the punch...

One thing I can’t stand about Goodreads reviews is the compulsion that so many reviewers have of giving a detailed summary of the plot. Is there anything more dull than reading a poorly written plot summary of a book you’ve already read or want to read? So, I’m not going to discuss the plot here, other than to point out that the plot is wholly irrelevant (which is stating the obvious, to Chandler-afficiandos). Chandler’s plots are always convoluted MacGuffins used as a backdrop for Marlowe to ex...

What can I say? It's Philip Marlowe as written by Raymond Chandler. How can it not be just what the doctor ordered? Granted, there are rumors that Chandler was less than thrilled by the final product but seriously, wouldn't you really prefer the worst of Raymond Chandler over the best of Baldacci?4.5 starsFYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.*4 Stars – It could st...

“All right,” he said wearily. “Get on with it. I have a feeling you are going to be very brilliant. Remorseless flow of logic and intuition and all that rot. Just like a detective in a book.”“Sure. Taking the evidence piece by piece, putting it all together in a neat pattern, sneaking in an odd bit I had on my hip here and there, analyzing the motives and characters and making them out to be quite different from what anybody – or I myself for that matter – thought them to be up to this golden mo...

Damn, what fine prose.Sometimes funny, mostly wry and sarcastic, this noir really ought to be on the top of any fan list. So much of our modern UF series takes all its cue from books like this.The racism angle is hardly at play here, considering that this came out in 1942, instead focusing on the murder and mystery and the missing rare coin. Why read it? Because of the damn prose. It's sharp, light, gritty, and you have this feeling like it might, at any point, sucker-punch you or cover you with...

‘All right. Get on with it. I have a feeling you are going to be very brilliant. Remorseless, flow of logic and intuition and all that rot. Just like a detective in a book.’I really like Philip Marlowe, I've decided. I want to look after him. He's actually a stand up guy. In this book I really preferred the simpler plot (not that Chandler's plots are ever terribly complicated). Has this one been made into a movie? As with all of this series, they all seem very cinematic to me, like half remember...

A wealthy widow asked Philip Marlowe to investigate a disappearance of a rare coin from her late husband collection; this disappearance coincidentally happened at the same time as that of her daughter-in-law. There was no love lost between the two, so Marlowe's client hopes the PI will be able to dig up enough dirt on her son's wife to get a solid ground for a divorce. This seems to be a simple case and Marlowe was able to find the location of both lost coin and escaped person fairly soon, but h...

She saw the cut glass decanter, took the stopper out, poured herself a drink and tossed it down with a quick flip of the wrist.“You’re a man named Marlowe?” she asked, looking at me. She put her hips against the end of the desk and crossed her ankles.I said I was a man named Marlowe.“By and large,” she said, “I am quite sure I am not going to like you one damn little bit. So speak your piece and drift away.” It’s a hard-boiled world out there, and a man named Marlowe must go down into its sewer

Like all of Raymond Chandler’s novels, The High Window features private detective Philip Marlowe as first-person narrator reporting events unfolding as he attempts to crack a case in sun-soaked Los Angeles. I marvel at his perceptiveness and cleverness. Can anybody surpass Marlowe in his ability to see all the angles, to size people up, to catch all the clues, to ask the right questions, to crack wise at those times cracking wise is the wisest, to put the puzzle together so all the pieces fit in...

The High Window (Philip Marlowe #3), Raymond ChandlerThe High Window is a 1942 novel written by Raymond Chandler. It is his third novel featuring the Los Angeles private detective Philip Marlowe. A wealthy Pasadena widow with a mean streak, a missing daughter-in-law with a past, and a gold coin worth a small fortune—the elements don't quite add up until Marlowe discovers evidence of murder, rape, blackmail, and the worst kind of human exploitation.عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «پنجره بالایی»؛ «پنجر...

Another hard-boiled detective novel starring the quintessential noir detective, Philip Marlowe. Our protagonist takes on a seemingly simple case involving a stolen gold doubloon but, this being a Chandler novel, the bodies soon start hitting the floor and Marlowe soon realises there's more to it than just a missing coin.Marlowe seems to dial the misogyny down a notch in this one and becomes quite a sweet father figure to a 'damsel in distress' with some physical and mental health issues. Said da...

A rich, twice widowed lush who likes to bully people, especially her mousey secretary and wimpy son, hires Marlowe to find a valuable coin, a Brasher Doubloon, and the ex-nightclub entertainer daughter-in-law who the old bat suspects of having absconded with the rare gold piece. In the course of his investigation, Marlowe encounters the usual cast of noir characters: losers, drunks, low-life criminals, corrupt rich people, blackmailers, brassy broads, tough cops, a frozen-eyed henchman, and dead...

In this worthy companion to The Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely. Marlowe tracks a rare colonial coin called "The Brasher Doubloon," finds a corpse, clears an innocent suspect, and--ever the knight in tarnished armor--rescues a damsel in distress. This novel features a handful of well-drawn stock characters: an iron dowager and her entourage (consisting of an effete son and a mousy secretary), a B-movie actor turned big-time gambler who is protected by a six-foot-five henchman (both with scars),...

Now our friend Philip Marlowe, a private dick in Los Angeles during the 1940's , is a nice guy...most of the time, he wouldn't murder anyone who didn't need it, maybe not real accurate, but in this novel he does let two killers escape justice...the victims were worst than the perpetrators. An opinion I'm sure the readers will concur... In Pasadena, a small, quiet, wealthy city outside L.A. lives in one of those mansions that some people envy, other hate a certain Mrs. Elizabeth Bright Murdock, t...

The High Window is another excellent novel featuring Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled L.A. detective, Philip Marlowe, although to my mind it's not quite on a par with Chandler's masterpieces, The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye.The case opens when a wealthy, twice-widowed Pasadena woman named Elizabeth Bright Murdock hires Marlowe to discreetly recover a valuable coin that has been stolen from her first's husband's collection. The client insists that her daughter-in-law, whom she hates, has taken t...

Whenever I review one of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novels I feel like I should be doing it with a half-bottle of rye on the desk next to the cigarette burning in an ashtray with my fedora pushed back on my head. But I quit smoking years ago, and I don’t bounce back from hangovers quite the way I used to so I try not to chug whiskey from the bottle these days unless it‘s a dire emergency. Maybe I can still get the hat….Marlowe gets hired by a ball-busting old bag who thinks that that the

Philip Marlowe is hired to find the Brasher doubloon, a valuable gold coin stolen from its owner. Marlowe trails the owner's daughter in law, thinking she stole the coin. Marlowe's path leads him into a web of murder and blackmail. Will Marlowe be able to find who stole the doubloon without winding up on the pile of corpses left in its wake?As I continuously mention, noir fiction of this type agrees with me like a bottle of Mad Dog does a homeless man. The High Window, Raymond Chandler's third P...

And Justice For All"The High Window" is the third book in Chandler's Philip Marlowe franchise. At this point in the series, an astute reader might just notice that Marlowe's clients are all rich folks in high-walled estates with numerous servants running cover for them. Perhaps they are the only ones who can afford his freight. And, perhaps the rich are different. They have such complicated problems hat ors almost impossible to untwist them. In another sense, though, Chandler, through Marlowe, i...