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I must have bought Farewell, My Lovely at the Pulp Show this spring and forgotten about it until I picked it up and read it today. (Mild spoilers to follow)
Cynical even for a Chandler mystery, it's pretty clear that no one really cares much about the initial crime because it was an African-American club shot up by Moose Malone, a white ex-con looking for the showgirl he'd been sweet on eight years earlier when the place catered to a different clientele. Marlowe's not even sure why he's looking for Malloy and Velma, except that he was there at the time and the police detective in charge isn't doing anything. Once sucked in, he takes even more physical punishment than usual: knocked unconscious three times, choked almost to death and shot up with various kinds of drug, it's amazing his brain still functions well enough to figure things out in the end. But then he has the typical low-level superpowers of a hardboiled private eye: he can keep going for a week on coffee, booze and his sense of curiosity. And the Chandlerverse does contain a few unexpected allies.
The plot in this one appeals to me as a sort of anti-conspiracy thriller: what seems like a huge, intricate scheme that goes all the way to the top of Bay City ultimately turns put to be a bunch of individual schemers, each trying to protect their own little racket. Even the local boss, when we finally get close to him, turns out to have the mayor in his pocket not so he can run Bay City, but because it's simpler than paying a bunch of lower-level authorities to leave his gambling operation untouched. There may be at least one plot hole here -- I can't recall if a clue that led Marlowe off on a false trail ultimately had any reason for existing, since it didn't fit into the final explanation. Ultimately it's the original question that turns out to be the significant one, all the way to the epilogue that allows the very thinnest ray of optimism regarding Velma.
Cynical even for a Chandler mystery, it's pretty clear that no one really cares much about the initial crime because it was an African-American club shot up by Moose Malone, a white ex-con looking for the showgirl he'd been sweet on eight years earlier when the place catered to a different clientele. Marlowe's not even sure why he's looking for Malloy and Velma, except that he was there at the time and the police detective in charge isn't doing anything. Once sucked in, he takes even more physical punishment than usual: knocked unconscious three times, choked almost to death and shot up with various kinds of drug, it's amazing his brain still functions well enough to figure things out in the end. But then he has the typical low-level superpowers of a hardboiled private eye: he can keep going for a week on coffee, booze and his sense of curiosity. And the Chandlerverse does contain a few unexpected allies.
The plot in this one appeals to me as a sort of anti-conspiracy thriller: what seems like a huge, intricate scheme that goes all the way to the top of Bay City ultimately turns put to be a bunch of individual schemers, each trying to protect their own little racket. Even the local boss, when we finally get close to him, turns out to have the mayor in his pocket not so he can run Bay City, but because it's simpler than paying a bunch of lower-level authorities to leave his gambling operation untouched. There may be at least one plot hole here -- I can't recall if a clue that led Marlowe off on a false trail ultimately had any reason for existing, since it didn't fit into the final explanation. Ultimately it's the original question that turns out to be the significant one, all the way to the epilogue that allows the very thinnest ray of optimism regarding Velma.
