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A feeling that somehow, somewhere, you've been kicked in the head like this before.

The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep Cover Author: Raymond Chandler
Pages: 234
Year Published: 1939

The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler’s first novel, introduces us to one of the most famous detectives in fiction, Phillip Marlowe. Marlow is hired to find out who is trying to blackmail the daughter of his rich client and in the process uncovers a nest of pornography, money and murder. Marlowe has to navigate his way through a maze of deception, which ultimately winds up leading him to an unlikely end of the case.

Chandler, along with Dashiel Hammett, is one of the masters of the “noir” detective story. His writing style has been emulated in everything from fantasy novels to William Gibson’s Neuromancer. It’s so iconic, it often winds up in parody of the genre as well.

The story itself is not bad, although The Maltese Falcon is better. It’s the way the story is told that is the real gem. Tight writing with wonderful metaphor and, what must have been in the 1940’s scandalous descriptions of a seedy underworld make reading the book a pleasure.

A cornerstone of the “noir” subgenre, The Big Sleep is still a wonderful book and highly recommended.

Other participants in the “52 in 52″ meme who reviewed books recently include:

  • Jeremy reviews Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother.
  • Jamie reviews Mort by Terry Pratchett.
  • Heliologue reviews Oliver Sack’s Musicophilia: Stories of Music and the Brain.

-K

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