Trouble is My Business (Philip Marlowe Series)

I first read Raymond Chandler when I recieved The High Window, The Lady In The Lake, Farewell, My Lovely and The Big Sleep, as Christmas gift's in 1965 when I was in High School. I went on to read all of Chandler's work and Dashiell Hammett's as well. I really enjoy the hard boiled detective style of fiction. I bought these novels as Christmas gifts for my Grandson seeing as how he is now in High School and hope he might enjoy them as much as I did.

If you're a fan of Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe, you'll like this one. It twists and turns, often in ways that are bewildering at the time. Marlowe is cool and hard, but kind and caring. Many of the characters are under-developed, but Marlowe holds it all together. It's a very enjoyable read.

If you've read or re-read all the Chandler novels, and want even more, you'll find this collection of short stories very satisfying! They are really four novellas, four short novels, all with Phillip Marlowe at his best!! There's no private eye like him - drinking, smoking, ridiculing!! The L.A. settings in the 40's and 50's are marvelous!

John Osborne

Ive read this book many times. This performer brought some subtleties and nuances to the text that added greatly to my enjoyment, particularly in some of the characters voices, notably Lt Breeze. Well done, especially fun for long time Chandler fans who want to "hear" him again or in a way they hadn't imagined.

Anything Raymond Chandler wrote is worth reading and you'll probably be glad you did. All his stories take place in the 40's and 50's ,so they're from different time and place than today's fiction. A better place some may argue.

My rating is not meant to undervalue Raymond Chandler's writing. He is recognized by legitimate critics to be one of the greats of his era. I have no quarrel with that. But even though I lived during the end of his era and grew up watching film noir movies starring Bogart and Powell, I just couldn't get into this book. I kept thinking of Carol Burnett comedy routines spoofing old detective flicks. I rated the book a modest three stars because it provided me very little entertainment, and I read to be entertained.

I love Phillip Marlowe as a detective. Chandler's first-person writing style suits this no-nonsense early detective genre brilliantly. His wise cracks and observational humour grip the reader with almost breathless rapid-fire dialogue. And I would still rather read a great novel than watch a the current crop of super-hero movies for example, where CGI and no meaningful dialogue masquerade as riveting entertainment. If you are into crime fiction Raymond Chandler is a must-read. Trust me!

(Kindle version review) One of my favorite writers and collections, but this is a very poor format ebook. The OCR-related typos are very annoying - they aren't uniform, it's as though several pages, scattered through the book, weren't edited or checked at all.

I think that these stories varied a lot in quality and impact...would definitely be more likely to use "Weep No More, My Lovely" or my personal favorite "the Long Goodbye" to show someone who didn't know how awesome and descriptive Raymond Chandler's writing is. I love the title, though.

This is a series of books that my husband request for his birthday. I decided to get them for him and he loved them all. He read them as a boy and now as an adult he wants to read them again, I guess to try to capture his boyhood excitement. Great value.

An author of mysteries in the 40's that has re-surfaced. Many like his style and he is basis for a writing style employed by today's writer. Not my style.. gave the book to the library for their book sale.

The story is typical Chandler, aside from the debate about twelve(12) versus four(4) short stories.
Typical action,mystery and complicated, fascinating plot.

But Elliot Gould is no Ed Bishop as Philip Marlowe(the early BBC radio dramatization series), nor is he Toby Stephens -
the later BBC Philip Marlowe attempt. Gould can put you to sleep very easily performing Johnny Dalmas as the
L.A. private eye.

With all I had ever heard about Phillip Marlowe mysteries, this book left me severely disappointed. The way the stories were written it was confusing in the way he moved from location to location, I often had to re-read sections to try to pick up the changes. This book certainly was not worth the discount price, so I know its not worth full price.

“The High Window” is the third full-length novel by Raymond Chandler (1888-1959). The title refers to the murder or suicide of a man who fell out of a window. In the novel, hard-nosed private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a cantankerous apparently wealthy widow to find a stolen coin worth in 1942 over $10,000, or hundreds of thousands of dollars in today’s money. The story involves three murders, gambling, counterfeiting, and blackmail.
Chandler is considered by many to be the founder of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction. He stressed the atmosphere of the events rather than the plot. His books show the corruption that existed in government and its police forces in the 1940s. His private detective Philip Marlowe is depicted as a romantic hero – a white knight who saves damsels in distress.
Critics differ in their views as to which Chandler novel is the best. I have so far read the first three of his books, and I think that he gets better and better with each novel. Thus, of the three, I like this one the best. He published seven novels during his lifetime. His eighth was completed and published by Robert B. Parker after his death. All of his novels, except his last one, were made into motion pictures, often more than once. There were two adaptations of this novel The first was made in 1942 and was called “Time to Kill.” It starred Lloyd Nolan as Michael Shayne, the name given to the private detective rather than Philip Marlowe. It lasts 61 minutes. The second film, made in 1947, starred George Montgomery as Philip Marlowe. The film lasts for 72 minutes. It has some of the snappy delightful dialogue that is in Chandler’s book.
The book, in short, is a classic with a fascinating story that is engrossing, a story that impacted not only readers but future writers who copied much of his style.

This volume contains four Raymond Chandler novellas, each about 60 pages in length, each about hard-boiled private detective Philip Marlowe, hard but with the heart of a knight errand, a man who felt his task (errand) is to rescue someone. In the title tale, “Trouble is My Business,” for example, he tries to help a woman who placed her clutches in and around a troubled young man who is securing a trust fund of millions of dollars.
“Trouble is My Business” was first published in 1939. In this paperback edition, Raymond Chandler offers readers an introduction which he wrote in 1950 where he reflects on writing pulp mysteries like his own. These stories, he tells, stressed the atmosphere of the events, times, and places, rather than the plot. “(T)he scene outranked the plot…. The ideal mystery was one you would read if the end was missing.” In the good hard-boiled story there is “some very determined individual (who) makes it his business to see that justice is done.
Marlowe in “Trouble” is hired to protect the troubled adopted son who owes $50,000 – a huge sum in 1939 – and stop a young beautiful woman from marrying the son who overindulges in alcohol. Three men are killed in the story, killings that do not make sense to Marlowe. Two thugs threaten Marlowe to stay away from the woman, and this also does not make sense.
The story is very good and the writing of it masterful.

Raymond Chandler was first published at the age of 44. His reputation as a game-changing crime writer rests on the seven novels he published between 1939 and 1958. This collection of four cases solved by PI Philip Marlowe was first published in 1950. They date back to 1934-1939 and were first published in “Black Mask” (here, Marlowe’s case 1 & 3) and “Dime Detective Magazine” (case 2 & 4).
‘Finger Man’ (case 2 here) was only his third published story, but it has all the hallmarks of the novels he wrote later. It is about corrupt politicians linked to organised crime and bent law enforcers in California; opportunistic damsels in distress with chivalrous, poor Philip Marlowe riding in to help, suffering lots of discomfort in the process. The inimitable atmosphere and language use are evident from page one.
This volume of 4 cases lacks the depth of character and possible gravitas contained in the books. Each is a string of dialogues, reflections, tense moments, violent scenes and killings. Marlowe often faces the muzzle of firearms, is sapped from behind or knocked unconscious and repeatedly finds his home invaded by a gunman or two, when turning in after a hard day’s or night’s work. These cases take several days to solve, not weeks or months, as in the novels.
Chandler’s first biographer Frank MacShane highlighted his talent or ability or habit to recycle material and scenes used in his low-brow magazine stories to a more literary level in his more sophisticated novels. So dear readers, much of what you find here are plot and style exercises (and much needed pot boilers) for the moment he felt confidence to start his novels. Great entertainment.

"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 end. There is a lengthy denouement in which Marlowe explains to several of the characters of the book the parties who have committed the crimes and their motives. Marlowe shows great acuity and powers of observation in working through the tangled situation.

In "The High Window" more than in the earlier two Marlowe books, the plotting gets in the way. It detracts from what are otherwise outstanding features of the book in its writing, its descriptive passages of Los Angeles and its development of a host of mostly unsavory characters. The strongest part of the book is the characterization of Marlowe himself which becomes deeper than in the early novels. Late in the book, a friend of Marlowe's describes him as the "shop-soiled Galahad", a phrase which sums up much of Marlowe's activities and character

Marlowe is retained by a wealthy curmudgeonly widow, Elizabeth Murdock, to investigate what the widow believes is the theft of a rare early American coin, the Brasher Doubloon, by her daughter-in-law, who is estranged from her son. Besides the widow Murdock, her hapless son Leslie, who cannot hold a job and is heavily in debt from gambling and Merle, Mrs. Murdock's timid, shy secretary, play large roles in the story.

Marlowe does not get along with either Elizabeth or Leslie Murdock. Investigating the doubloon's disappearance leads Marlowe deep into other crimes, and the police even suspect him of holding back information on the murders which follow in the wake of the doubloon. The crimes require great perceptiveness to resolve. But the emphasis on the book is on Marlowe's character in remaining loyal to the Murdocks even though he dislikes them intensely for good reason. He keeps the family out of harm's way with the law. More important still is Marlowe's idealism and his desire to do the right thing. As the story develops, he learns how and why Merle's life has become emotionally stunted during her years working for Mrs. Murdock. He takes it upon himself to rescue her from a poisonous situation in a way that goes well beyond any duty he had undertaken to Mrs. Murdock as a private detective. Marlowe shows moral heroism while in the midst of a tarnished, often violent life of a private detective. Marlowe does his job, speaks brilliantly and poetically, is highly educated, and recognizes the characters of the people with whom he deals. There is a great deal of atmosphere in the book with nightclubbing, sultry singing, suits and hats and cars, cigarettes, pipes, and cigars, and alcohol. Marlowe also is a student of chess. With all the surroundings of 1940's life, some of which are highly appealingly portrayed, and a great deal of less than stellar behavior, Marlowe indeed emerges, more so than in the two earlier books, as a moral hero and as a "shop-soiled Galahad".

The tough, inspired portrayal of Marlowe with his idealism and loyalty in a world shown as fallen more than make up for the complications of the plot in this novel. In this and in his other Marlowe novels, Chandler created an iconic American character. The book is available individually or as part of the first of two Library of America volumes including the "Stories and Early Novels" of Raymond Chandler.

Robin Friedman.

Of course, you cannot go wrong if you choose a Chandler novel. His prose is stunning; here you have an original and, to this day, stunning writer. His words evoke a world that is both appalling yet appealing; we know the kinds of things that will happen and the dreadful characters we’ll meet, the awful events that will ensue. But we are also in that familiar world which beckons us to relish its richness, however bleak it may be. Like Austen or Dickens, and Chandler can be considered in such company, he creates fiction that moves us on a number of levels, from the clear-eyed understanding of society to the sharp humour. Indeed, Chandler’s descriptions can be Dickensian in their power, and in Mrs Murdock he has created a monster to rival many of Dickens’.

Chandler also does pathos very well, without sentiment, and here we encounter some of his most tragic characters, particularly Merle, Mrs Murdock’s secretary. The High Window is probably Chandler’s darkest Marlowe story – its bleakness, its evocation of corruption and evil; and its depiction of the dark, sad and brutal underbelly of the American Dream.

If you have never read Chandler before this is a good place to start and you are in for a treat. It is also a novel to return to and enjoy all over again. He is one of the greatest modern fiction writers, in any genre. Generations to come will celebrate his art, long after the latest literary fiction wunderkinds with large advances are vanished and forgotten.

I've read all of the Philip Marlowe novels / stories, and the one I always come back to when I'm in the mood for Raymond Chandler at his best is "Red Wind." It's a prime example of the man's craft...a couple of sentences in and you're sitting on a stool in some rat hole of a dive bar with the Santa Ana winds howling outside and Philip Marlowe sitting next to you. I'm not going to go into a deep or philosophical analysis of Chandler's work here...you can overdose on the wealth of that kind of writing with a couple of mouse clicks. Rather, I just want to say that Chandler should be a "go-to" author for the times you want to just "curl up with a good book." The characters are jaded, world-weary, "street smart," punch drunk...they'll all ring true with you. You won't feel like Chandler is "telling a story" in some cute or manipulative way. You'll feel like he's yanking you by the collar into some real-life brouhaha that's happening in the moment, live, all around you. He's the master. It's that simple.

“From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.”

Yes, there are some classic Marlowe-isms in this novel and it does have a fairly straightforward (by Chandler's standards anyway) plot, but even so it comes up short compared to the two earlier installments of the series. The supporting cast is a bit more one-dimensional here and the book's intro a bit too familiar. Still, it's authentic Chandler, with that hugely influential and undeniably compelling lead character that forever changed the world of detective fiction. Recommended reading. Of course.

“After a moment I pushed my chair back and went over to the french windows. I opened the screens and stepped out on to the porch. The night was all around, soft and quiet. The white moonlight was cold and clear, like the justice we dream of but don't find.”

I get a lot of funny looks when I begin raving about Raymond Chandler's writing, but I honestly think he is one of the most gifted (and underrated) American novelists of the 20th Century. I have read his major novels (including this one) at least three times each, and I'm about to embark on another trip through them. Had Chandler not drunk himself to a premature death (his skills began to diminish quickly after The Lady in the Lake), I think he'd be better recognized for the genius he was.

I won't summarize the plot here; other reviewers have done an excellent job of that. Anyhow, Chandler's brilliance lay not so much in his plot development (which was almost incidental, IMO), but in his ability to transport the reader back into the Noir Los Angeles of the 30s and early 40s, through the eyes of his down-at-the-heels hero, Philip (NEVER Phil!) Marlowe...and to do it without ever wasting a word. Never have I read fiction that evoked the mood of a particular time and place so well as Chandler, and with such economy of words, such minimal use of adjectives. One page of top-notch Chandler will likely hit you harder than 10 pages of other excellent mystery writers such as, say PD James or Agatha Christie. I realize that I may be going a bit off the deep end here, and that your mileage may vary. But, hey, I took 16 hours of college literature classes, and I've been an avid reader for 50 years. For sheer enjoyment, for the thrill of the ride, no one else even comes close. Well, maybe Tolkien, but then he was a Brit and wrote in a different genre. So he don't count. Chandler was the writer James Ellroy wants to be when he grows up.

Trouble is My Business

These four short stories were taken from the original book “The Simple Art of Murder”. They are about his fictional private detective Phillip Marlowe who is from Los Angeles. The “Continental Op” was a hard boiled gritty detective. Phillip Marlowe speaks in a witty manner that show the erudition of his author, and may explain his appeal in literary circle. Marlow drinks like a fish (to match the author?). The slang used has a short shelf life. You can decide if this is more realistic.

“Trouble Is My Business” tells of a job where Marlowe has to break up the romance between a wealthy heir and a showgirl. This ends in a tragedy for the powerful millionaire that hired Marlowe. (Why couldn’t Marlowe notice the tail when he went to visit the Questioned Document Examiner?) Does this story echo some Shakespearean tragedy?

“Finger Man” tells how a crooked politician tries to get even with Marlowe for his testimony. A man hires Marlowe to act as his bodyguard when he visits a gambling house. The man is found dead, his winnings wind up in Marlowe’s safe. This typical detective story ends with the guilty dead or in jail; except for the red head.

“Goldfish” tells how Marlowe is hired to recover stolen property. The company that insured the pearls offers a reward. The man with the lead is found dead. More difficulties follow. Another pair try to find the pearls. Marlowe finds the paroled thief. (If someone lives in an area, do they need a map to find a house?) The evil pair are neutralized, and Marlowe finds the hidden pearls.

“Red Wind” begins with Marlowe drinking a beer at a bar, watching another man drink rye. A stranger walks in for a drink. The rye drinker suddenly shoots him, and walks out the door. Now the mystery begins: strangers pop up, then disappear. Coincidences that are part of the story appear. The ending has an “O. Henry” touch. Illusions fall, and reveal a sad reality. [This is the most dramatic story in this book.]

Philip Marlowe is hired by Mrs. Murdock to find a rare coin, a Brasher Doubloon, and, she hopes to give grounds for a divorce for her son, from his wife of a year. She is a hardheaded women who very few could like.
In the first day or so, he finds time to talk with Mrs. Murdock's son, and another private eye hired to do something vague. The latter invites Mr. Marlowe to visit him at his apartment, and even gives Mr. Marlowe the key to it. Weird that he did that, but he really wanted to discuss with Mr. Marlowe his case. When Mr. Marlowe got there, he went in, poked around, and found the bloke dead in the tub!
He gets the police called, and thereupon is in bad graces because he is not fessing up about his current employment. Other things happen, and he finds the doubloon mailed to him. When he calls to talk with Mrs. Murdock, she tells him the doubloon has been returned as well. What is going on is the crux of the story. In the end someone gets away with murder, the truth of a blackmail is revealed as false, etc.
I am not sure this is such a good detective story because the murders are not solved absolutely, just sort of. In the sense that it is not necessary for all detectives to be able to solve every mystery, it is a change from the ordinary.

When I first started reading novels, I hated reading descriptions. They were long and boring. Just get to the dialogue! Then I read Thomas Hardy. His descriptions were so good it was like watching a movie--I could SEE what he wrote. Then I started reading Raymond Chandler. His descriptions were so good it was if I was there. When he described how hot it was, I would sweat. He wrote so well I didn't want to miss a word. There's a scene where the detective Philip Marlowe is in his high rise office and Raymond Chandler describes the noises from the street below and how still the air was, and the phone starts to ring. I get chills every time I read it.
Chandler did not believe in plots. There's a story that while filming The Big Sleep Humphrey Bogart asked who had killed the chauffeur and no one knew. They called Raymond Chandler, and he didn't know either. Chandler was once asked about plots and he said he just wrote and when he couldn't figure out where to go next, he would have a character pull out a gun.
People confuse Philip Marlowe with Sam Spade (Dashiell Hammett), mostly because Humphrey Bogart had portrayed both detectives, but the writing of the authors is dissimilar. Philip Marlowe is the original hard boiled detective, complete with a gat and sometimes a doll. Read this book. You won't be disappointed.

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 the coin although she has no proof. The daughter-in-law has either left or been driven from the home. Mrs. Murdock wants Marlowe to quietly find the woman and get the coin back. The police are most certainly not to be involved.

All in all, this is a pretty strange household that also includes Mrs. Murdock's wimpy son and a severely repressed young secretary whom the widow treats like a doormat. Marlowe takes the case, although he pretty much knows from the git-go that everyone is lying to him, including his client.

Well of course they are, and before long poor Marlowe is up to his neck in a case that involves gambling, infidelity, blackmail and a small handful of murders. As is the case with any Raymond Chandler plot, it's all pretty confusing, although in the end, this one gets sorted out better than most.

As always, it's great fun to follow Marlowe through these tangled webs and, as always, the book is beautifully written in a style that has often been imitated but never matched. Raymond Chandler and his tattered detective were each one of a kind.

The High Window

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. Raymond Chandler uses the language of those days. The dollar figures date this novel. [It was then illegal for a private citizen to own gold coins. That is one reason for not calling in the authorities.]

(4.5 stars) This was my first Raymond Chandler book. There seem to be two versions, mine is the one with four stories -- Trouble Is My Business, Finger Man, Gold Fish, & Red Wind. All of them feature his famous creation -- detective Philip Marlowe. Each story is about 60 pages and they moved along pretty quickly. Sometimes they could be a bit hard to follow but were always entertaining. Looking forward to reading more of Chandler's detective stories. On a side note, it's funny how language has changed. For instance, you couldn't get away with lines like this today: "Haven't seen a dick in a year" & "You hold him, while I unrod the dick."

The High Window by Raymond Chandler is the third installment in the Philip Marlowe series. While it may not be as great as the first two, (The Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely), the novel is fast paced, has wonderful dialogue, and keeps you guessing until the end. Marlowe is called upon by a wealthy old widow to retrieve a rare coin believed to be stolen by her daughter-in-law. Marlowe must also find a way to obtain a divorce for the widow's son. As Marlowe investigates, various people involved with the case are brutally murdered. The murders lead Marlowe to a blackmailer and a counterfeiting scheme which involves the very family for whom he is working.
The High Window is a good read. I found it more of a gothic novel than Chandler's earlier two. There are some parts where the action lags a bit, however the dialogue and Chanleresque descriptions more than make up for this. Each page drips with sarcasm as we get the first person narration from the wise cracking private eye. The High Window also gives you more of a look into the character of Marlowe as the "White Knight" archetype.
I would highly recommend this for fans of the first two in the series. Also, if you enjoyed this and the other two I would recommend Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett, The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler, and The Brasher Doubloon starring Robert Montgomery.

Not as groundbreaking or as sleazy as The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler's first novel, nor as vicious as Farewell My Lovely, his second, The High Window, his third, nevertheless shows just why Chandler is so compelling and so influential. If you consider just the bare plot and the underlying mystery, you'd be hard pressed to work up any excitement (though at some points you may be tempted to laugh out loud at its absurdity). But add Chandler's inimitable prose, the fascinatingly complex central character of Philip Marlowe, and the various other side characters Chandler dreams up for Marlowe to tangle with and you get one hell of a page turner. It's also a page turn-backer as you'll want to re-read some of Chandler's priceless passages.

The plot, as I said, is fairly preposterous. Marlowe is hired by a cantankerous rich old woman to find and return a valuable old coin she believes her estranged daughter-in-law stole. Marlowe takes the case and then keeps ending up discovering bodies. As in Chandler's other books, who killed them is not nearly as interesting as Marlowe's investigation and the hard-boiled confrontations with various supporting characters that the investigation requires.

At the same time, Chandler continues to develop and round out Marlowe's character, this time with a surprising level of sentimentality at the end, which I won't give away.

I've said in a number of my reviews of mystery novels that I value character and dialogue way over plot in this genre and The High Window may be the most compelling illustration of that point.

A lot of people have beliefs in what a detective novel "should" be and since Chandler novels are so archetypical, having set the tone for what feels like ninety percent of everything that followed, there's probably a sense that a Marlowe story should contain all that is good and necessary in a detective story. Dames and danger and murder and moral ambiguity and crime and maybe even a rousing musical number. Oh wait, that's Dennis Potter.

Yet sometimes in trying to define what a detective story is, we're not as open to the times when a writer decides to color outside the lines and give us a story that's like what it's "supposed" to be, but winds up being not quite. The crayons he's using are all the same shade, it's about where he's applying them. And you so engrossed in focusing on what's missing that you don't notice that what remains isn't merely subtracted, but augmented.

This isn't the best Marlowe story, but frankly I liked it more than the ones where he gets knocked out every five chapters or tries to romance someone who appears to be a bit on the easy side. I come from a SF and fantasy background, with some literature thrown in to feel important (which is how I arrived at Chandler), so the amount of genre mystery stories that I've read consists of one Miss Marple novel and however many Chandler books I've read so far. I have no idea what the genre cliches are, I have no idea where Chandler is ripping himself off from short stories, I don't know into what messy categories the characters fall into. But I like atmosphere and this one has it in spades, bringing back a place that was already fading even when Chandler wrote about it, the sun drenched and corrupted haze of Los Angeles in the years just before World War Two hit.

For once Marlowe get a case that seems easy on the face of it, an old cranky rich lady calls him to her house so he can search for a rare coin that has been stolen from her. She believes it was stolen by her daughter-in-law, who she hates, but because she's rich she wants him to do his detectiving on the sly so that all the local papers don't get scandalized. He takes the case and before too long realizes there's more going on than just looking between the sofa cushions, as the case threatens to drag in mobsters and blackmail and mistresses and shady doings and a secret that was kept from someone a long time ago. He also becomes a magnet for corpses in tried and true Marlowe fashion, although something about this trail of bodies feels different. Unlike other cases where Marlowe is almost constantly in danger, he's hardly even threatened here, not seriously. It's more than he's trying to stop something bad from happening but he can't figure out what the bad is or, worse, whether it's something ongoing. It gives the novel a voyeuristic quality, as if Marlowe is continually walking into the last act of plays that have started without him (not that different from the film version of "No Country for Old Men", in how all the important bloodshed happens offscreen and the living are left to wander in and sort out the aftermath). Here we get to know the people a bit before they're brutally murdered, even if we don't like them and there's not the melodramatic quality of the killings in other novels (like the ice-pick murders from "The Little Sister"), instead there's almost a solemn air to it, as Marlowe steps into zones of stilled chaos and is left to figure out the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that was allowed to be flung into a ceiling fan.

As such, it lacks the depth of his first two masterpieces but even if Chandler wasn't able to reach those heights this time out, he's still working off the same good stuff. The dialogue crackles as Marlowe darts and weaves and dodges around all inquiries, balancing the line between serving the client, serving justice and saving his own skin, and his narration is drenched in glorious atmosphere, simultaneously able to convey the physical details of a locale as well as the emotional components of it. He rarely overwrites and still manages to strike the perfect tone between the literal and what Marlowe sees filtered through his weary eyes. We get more of a sense of him as a person here, his affection for chess and his unspoken desire to be a white knight, his navigation of elements both nefarious and otherwise, his ability to manipulate people (even if it's just to fend them off). We're never given the idea that all his cynicism is a shield against a cruel and unfair world but we do get the notion that maybe he wishes he wasn't so perfectly suited for it.

It's the environment he lives in that comes alive here and acts as a character in itself, all the seamy greedy struggling people all trying to make a living at things that they may not be very good at or just aren't good ideas. From the amateur detective (nicely showing how good Marlowe is in contrast) to the drunk who beats his girlfriend to a coin dealer to the spoiled son to the mobsters and those who love them, we get that cross-section feel that makes his best novels sing, where it feels like all these factions exist in uneasy homeostasis and Marlowe is threading himself through in a way that won't disturb it. Even more amazing we get our first real innocent in a world where even the victims are almost always exhibiting a degree of karma and it plays into the wounded romantic feel here. Marlowe can't help but fit right in, but that doesn't mean he can't stop that from happening to someone else.

The payoff for all the mysterying is a little too clunky, in contrast to his more graceful resolutions. After watching Marlowe stumble about for two hundred pages, he helpfully explains all the missing details in a 1940s version of an info-dump, which even he comments he's getting tired of his own voice. It helps wrap things up but in this novel the mystery almost seems beside the point, where the case he takes into the case he was hired for, where he has to convince a person who already thought they were saved that they need to be saved. It gives us one of his most graceful and grey endings, and along the way one of his finest lines: "I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again." Maybe one of the best descriptions to appear in any mystery novel, it's stark in its minimalism and yet like the best of Chandler's work, reveals the lifetime of a world behind it, and every ounce of the weight that presses down on those who deserve it and those who don't and those who are content merely to bear it.

I love Chandler's detective noir - the dialogue, the impending danger and unexpected threats, the femme fatales. Another element that I didn't realize I liked about the way Chandler writes (until I missed it in _The High Window_) is the unconventional story line he has - readers are always kept slightly off balance, never really knowing how things will unravel until the final chapter. _The High Window_ is much more "mainstream" detective drama (ala Sherlock Holmes): Marlowe is given a case, he interviews suspects, the mystery is solved with a detailed explanation as to how the case was worked out at the end.

While this is not necessarily a negative thing, it is very out of character for Marlowe (and Chandler.) I didn't care for it much. The plot - Marlowe is hired to track down a rare coin that has turned up missing - is solid, and the female interest in the story is unusual (Marlowe rides in on his white stallion, and the both of them ride out into the sunset), but the typical formula for a mystery just didn't ring true to what I expect and love about this author's work.

This objection aside, the style, dialogue and gritty descriptions of early 1940s Los Angeles still sparkle, and the interactions between characters are are lively and "noir-ish" as ever. No one writes like Chandler, and issues of the plot construction aside, it is still a darn good read. Recommended.

Marlowe goes to Pasadena to meet a client about a job. First he has to get past the secretary. Miss Davis is a rather meek soul, who asks for his references, and once they check out, she takes him to see the client--Mrs. Elizabeth Murdock. Mrs. Murdock is a large, hard woman with an unpleasant attitude, one that isn't above haggling Marlowe about what his expenses consist of. The situation is this--something of value has been stolen from her, and she suspects the culprit to be her daughter-in-law, the item in question being a very rare and valuable coin known as a Brasher Doubloon.

Mrs. Murdock didn't know the coin was missing until she received a suspicious phone call from a dealer named Morningstar making inquiries as to whether the coin was for sale. The thing is that any reputable dealer would know the coin isn't for sale, per the stipulations of the late Mr. Murdock's will. Then she checked and found out the coin was missing. She figures it was an inside job, as those are the only people who would have access to it. Mrs. Murdock wants the coin back, but she doesn't know where her son's wife went--plus she wants a divorce arranged. Marlowe agrees to take the case, and is handed back to the secretary to get his retainer--along with a little information, some voluntary, some not so. He learns that Linda Murdock, formerly Linda Conquest, once roomed with another girl named Lois Magic. And he learns that the secretary, Merle, has quite a thing, in her own quiet way, for Mrs. Murdock's son, which includes keeping his monogrammed handkerchief in a drawer, as well as a small caliber pistol.

As Marlowe leaves the Murdock residence, he notices a sand-colored coupe that seems to be following him. But he could be wrong about that.

Marlowe returns to his office, and while he's thinking about the case, he receives a visitor--Mr. Leslie Murdock, the son. He's trying to find out why Marlowe's been hired, but the PI is too cagey to divulge that bit of information. Murdock reveals more than he learns--namely, that he still loves his wife, and that he is into a guy named Morny for some big money, maybe twelve grand. Marlowe sends him on his way, and calls up Morningstar, making an appointment to see him at his office at 3 o'clock.

He can't find Lois Magic in the phone book, so he uses a connection to learn what he can about Morny. Turns out he married Lois Magic. Small world indeed. He gets an address and heads over there, but the hired help say she isn't at home. Well, there's more than one way to do things, so Marlowe does it his way, and finds out from the chauffeur that Mrs. Morny is indeed at home, in the backyard, along with Mr. Vannier.

Marlowe runs into the sand-colored coupe and its driver again, and confronts him. The guy breaks down and admits he's been following Marlowe. His name is Phillips and he's also a PI, working a case. Maybe they can work it together, since the cases seem to be related. He makes a time for Marlowe to come over to his place, and just for insurance, he gives him a key, in case he arrives first.

Marlowe shows up, but it's too late for Phillips.

And he's only the first stiff.

Fake coins, missing wives, cheating wives, terrified secretaries, and a body count that just won't quit. All in the job description for Phillip Marlowe.

The High Window is the third book in the Philip Marlowe series. I liked it as much as I did the others. Chandler has a way with words that is truly unique, and he paints a vivid picture of the times and the people, drawing memorable characters. I like that Marlowe has layers, and we see more and more of those layers as time goes on. In this story, he's a real gentleman. We already knew he was honest. The story has all the ingredients of a good mystery--dead bodies, people with secrets, lies, and mysteries. I look forward to reading the next book.

Philip Marlowe is hired to recover a lost coin for a crotchety widow. She suspects her daughter-in-law and wants Marlowe to arrange a divorce.

Marlowe, of course, encounters a ton of obstacles and a mounting body count. In addition, to the official side of the business, he suspects something is really wrong with the old woman's secretary who is being mistreated.

The case is somewhat average fare. It's by no means a bad story but it's also not The Big Sleep and it's not Farewell, My Lovely. It has its moments such as when Marlowe is justifying non-cooperation with the police on the basis of a case they mishandled through corruption, and then later he admits the story was made up and later on, says maybe it wasn't. However, the characters aren't as good and the dialogue isn't either. In addition to this, there are few less threads that are left hanging and there are a few more, we really don't care about.

On the positive side Marlowe's noble actions towards the secretary and the purity of his motives really live up to his Knight in Tarnished Armor Rep. In the end, it's a great story but not a classic.

To be honest, it seems kind of silly giving this book only four stars. If you compare it to the vast majority of hardboiled or detective novels ever written, it would deserve five stars. It is only when it is compared to Chandler's other books that it falls short. This was his third novel, published after THE BIG SLEEP (which started the vogue for starting books and movies with the words "The Big") and FAREWELL, MY LOVELY. In none of those books is plot and story as important as Chandler's exquisite prose, his wonderfully detailed descriptions, or his magnificently decadent characters. But even so the plots of those two look brilliant compared to this one.

The number of problems with the plot of THE HIGH WINDOW is legion, but I'll highlight only two. Chandler wants Philip Marlowe to discover a body. There are a million ways to do this, but instead of something elegant and simple, Chandler creates incredibly unlikely scenarios whereby the future corpse gives Chandler a key to his apartment so that he won't be forced to wait around if he somehow doesn't happen to be there. This is such a cheap device that it is almost as if Chandler were trying to parody storytelling. Perhaps even sillier is a bizarre gun swap, in which the killer goes into a nearby apartment, finds a gun under the pillow of the tenant, and switches it with his own. Much of the subsequent story hinges on the strange gun swap.

So, as an example of plot, THE HIGH WINDOW is a failure. Nonetheless, there is still the prose. Although Chandler is unquestionably one of the most imitated writers in literary history, no one has quite been able to match his power with words. Marlow enters a club. "A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pajamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins." He prepares to question someone. "From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away." He describes the residents of Bunker Hill: "Out of the apartment houses come women who should be young but have faces like stale beer; men with pulled-down hats and quick eyes that look the street over behind the cupped hand that shields the match flame . . . people who look like nothing in particular and know it."

And there are the characters. Though the best characters in THE HIGH WINDOW are not as memorable as the many, many memorable characters in THE BIG SLEEP or FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, there are still several so striking as to not easily slip out of mind.

But substandard Chandler or not, he is one of those writers so brilliant and original that he deserves to be read in toto. One should read not this or that novel, but all of it, short stories included. He is one of the few writers to have played a major role in shaping our culture as a whole. But besides that, his books -- even the lesser ones -- are just a great, great read.

Raymond Chandler’s personal story echoes from the bottom of an empty whiskey bottle. Over all his books the drinking, smoking and hard-boiled characters have a certain ring that makes you suspect the author lived his main character. That said, I do not think this is one of Chandler’s best works. (See The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely and The Long Goodbye for my favorites) The plot seems a bit overwrought and I won’t give a summary as another reviewer 'Janice' stated, “One thing I can’t stand with some 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?”.

If you haven’t read Chandler before and have The High Window in front of you, read it. Even just for Chandler’s use of metaphor as he paints the gritty world his main character, Marlowe, exists in. I won’t give any examples here as they are like sweets to enjoy as you read. Chandler also gives a real sense of Los Angeles and takes us beneath the sun bleached exterior down into its dark soul. But most of all I love Chandler’s fast character development, often done with one metaphor, where one deft sentence gives you the essence of the character. I can't help myself...one from The High Window,"She had pewter-colored hair set in a ruthless permanent, a hard beak and large moist eyes with the sympathetic expression of wet stones."

The High Window was published in 1942. It's author Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) is a poetic master of hardboiled noir crime fiction. His metaphoric and colorful language; fascinating characters and sparkling prose make Chandler an American original. His works leap the high wall between mystery fiction and true literary art.
The High Window opens at a house in the Oak Noll Section of Pasadena. An obese, obtuse and cruel double widow with the name of Elizabeth Bright Murdock has called Marlowe to her home. The grotesque woman wants Marlowe to locate a rare coin known as the "Brasher Doubloon" which belonged to her late husband. The doubloon has been stolen. Murdock wants Marlowe to locate her former showbiz girl daughter-in-law Linda Conquest whom she suspects is guilty of the heist. Linda has been recently divorced from Lester Murdock the weak little Uriah Heepish cipher who is Mrs. Murdock's son. Marlowe also meets the intriguing Miss Merle Davis who is the virginal secretary of Mrs. Murdock. What lurks beneath the surface? Who stole the coin? What dirty secrets are being hid from the eyes of the police? Answers await as we join Marlowe on a dive into the inferno of sin which lies at the belly of the beast of Los Angeles.
This is the opening scene in a novel filled with all the twists and turns we expect in a Chandler novel. Along the way there are three murders as wheel spins within wheel in the shady, cruel, cynical and convoluted morality of the characters inhabiting the Chandlerian universe.
We remember Chandler for his skill in realistic dialogue and word paintings of Los Angeles and its 1940s environs. The plots are hard to follow and forgettable. Pick up a Chandler novel for pure reading pleasure as your eyes scan the lines penned by a master of American fiction!

A collection of a few long short stories by Raymond Chandler all featuring (of course) Philip Marlowe. These are some of my favorite short stories of Chandler's, especially Red Wind and the title story Trouble is my Business. I'm kind of a snob when it comes to reading. I usually stick to stuff like Tolstoy, Fitzgerald, etc. but Chandler IMO really transcends the genre of hardboiled fiction. His characters are so vivid and the city of Los Angeles describes in such amazing detail it often practically qualifies as a character in the story. Chandler's writing says a lot about the cynicism and corruption of the US at that time and these stories capture that perfectly.

Los Angeles has its muse. His name is Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)Chicago born who was raised in Great Britain. Chandler had trouble with booze and broods but he could write like an angel about the City of Angels. Vintage has published "Trouble My Business" containing four of Chandler's stories about Private Investigator Phillip Marlowe and the seedy and salacious, corrupt and cruel world he inhabited in the lost Los Angeles of the 1930s and 1940s.
The stories are:
Trouble is My Business: Marlowe is hired by Mr. Jeeter to prevent a scandal concerning his ne'er do well son and the seductive the deliciously named Harriet Huntress. Bodies litter the scene and the plot is convoluted.
Finger Man deals with scandals and political shenanigans. A complicated plot laced with murder, sassy dialogue and a difficult case for Marlowe to solve.
Goldfish- An ex-con who stole the Sol Leander diamonds worth 200,000 is tracked down by Marlowe. Wally Sipe has retired to Washington State where he enjoys tending his goldfish. Will the diamonds be recovered? Will Marlowe live to tell the tale?
Red Wind-In hot LA an adulterous woman is in deep trouble. She has to do business with a crook named Joseph Coates who has the jewelry she was given by her lover. Yet he turns up dead in a bar in a murder witnessed by Marlowe. The lady is named Lola and she is an intriguing lady. A cruel cop named Copernik enjoys roughing up Marlowe.
All of these short stories are written in the Chandler style of tough talk, good scenic description and plot twists. Blackmail plots abound. Chandler is always worthy of a reader's time and money for the purchase of the book. He was better at scene setting, sharp and metaphoric dialogue and character description than he was in making the plot clear to the sometimes bemused reader.

Updated -August 2013

You've got that right brother, trouble, trouble with a capital T is Raymond Chandler's classic hard-boiled private detective Philip Marlowe's business. We have followed old Phillip Marlowe through thick and thin in this space in the seven Raymond Chandler-created full-length novels. Our intrepid private eye, private dick, shamus, gumshoe or whatever you call a guy that, privately, and for too little dough scrapes off other peoples' dirt, and does it not badly at that, in your neighborhood. And kept his code of honor intact, well mostly intact, as he, for example, tried to spare an old man some anguish, some wild daughters anguish in The Big Sleep, or tried to find gigantic Moose's Velma, Velma who did not want to be found, not by Moose anyway, in Farewell, My Lovely or find that foolish old timey coin in The High Window despite his client's ill-winded manners. And on it went.

But see not all trouble, trouble with a capital T or not, is worthy of the world historic Chandler Marlowe treatment dished out in full detail like in those seven novels. Sometimes the caper to be solved or case to be squared is of a lesser magnitude and so we have the Raymond Chandler compilation under review, Trouble Is My Business, to, well, shed some light on Marlowe's lesser cases. Not that they were necessarily any easier to solve, or that he didn't take as many bumps on the head or guns in his ribs as the longer pieces but there were fewer moving parts to deal with. So a few cases could be lumped together, four in all, as a kind of sampler for those who might not have grown up in the 1940s and 1950s enthralled by the Marlowe mystique.

Take the title story, Troubles Is My Business, where a high-roller, a Mayfair swell, for his own purposes, hires Marlowe second-hand to get some dame, some cash-craving dame, a gold-digger, to lay off his son, his adopted son, to keep an eye on him, and keep him away from those addicted roulette tables that he has made his home , and squash those markers that a certain mobster, a California mobster transplanted from back East holds until that son inherits a cool few million. Naturally Marlowe tries to do an end-around by getting to the dame, getting her to lay off the son. And naturally as well that ill-bred son winds up dead, very dead, in that dame's apartment. All signs point to the dame or the mobster or both but it only takes our boy about fifty pages to figure out what evil forces are working the scenes. And without giving anything away, once again we are going to have our noses rubbed in the hard fact that the rich, the very rich really, as F. Scott Fitzgerald used to say, are different from you and me, and get away with a hell of a lot more than you and me.

Another story, Finger Man, where Marlowe I am sure with some qualms found himself before a D.A.s grand jury telling all he knows about the nefarious doings of one set of "connected" politicians and their criminal consorts in trying to run everything that moved in some Pacific Coast town. And for his troubles he got set up, set up bad taking a long- time friend down with him before the dust cleared. Naturally a dame, a red-headed dame which tells you a little how bad things were, was knee-deep in the set-up and it almost worked except the bad guys (crooks and politicians alike) left too many moving parts to their plan and Marlowe was able to skate right through the trap. Although, as usual, he took his fair share of bumps on the head, shots fired at him, cigarette smoked and stubbed out, and dips into that bottom desk drawer whiskey bottle that will die an easy death before he is through with it.

Or how about this one, Goldfish, another in a long line of tales about searching for that El Dorado, that pot of gold, except this time it is pearls, the Leander pearls no less, and they are not in the ocean but are loose in the land as a result of a very heavy robbery where guys were killed and others guys got sent up to the big house for their efforts. But here is the kicker-the guy who would know where those pearls are, the guy who stole them and did his time to keep them, isn't talking, is as quiet as a mouse about their whereabouts. Until Marlowe, and a nefarious pack of chiselers and other grifters, get hot on his trail. This one is a little off-balanced though since the dame who figures here is nothing but a desperado out of the Bonnie and Clyde mold and not one of gallant Marlowe's frails. Of course she has company and as the number of those in for a cut dwindle due to various eternal departures inflicted many ways but mainly by the old equalizer , the gun, a precious one, Marlowe, is left to figure where those damn pearls are so he can get the reward for their return from the eager insurance company. Hint: strangely enough gold fish actually do enter into this one at the end. Go figure.

Or finally this one, Red Wind, a case taking us back to home ground Los Angeles and a case that our boy was not even looking for, he was just out for a quick beer before dipping into that desk drawer whiskey bottle, or something like that. And damn if pearls weren't involved in this one too, although they came with a scent this time, perfume, sandalwood, so you know there will be trouble for Marlowe to keep his mind on business. Yah, old Marlowe was just minding his own business when trouble hit him square in the face. A little off-hand bump off of a guy who was looking for a gal, among other things, smelling of sandalwood in order sell her back some young girl pearls that some flyboy war hero gave her back in the day. And that little action led to a another murder, some blackmail, revelations of some matrimonial duplicity, a few scuffles with the cops, good and bad, and the usual assortment of bump and slugs Marlowe seems drawn to like a moth to flame. Yes, in this one he is back on his horse tilting at windmills for a dame, and not even going under the sheets with her. Jesus.

Oh yah, about Raymond Chandler, about the guy who wrote this selection of short Marlowe stories. Like I said in another review he, along with Brother Dashiell Hammett turned the dreary gentile drawing-room sleuth by-the-numbers crime novels that dominated the reading market back in the day on its head and gave us tough guy blood and guts detectives we could admire, could get behind, warts and all. Thanks, guys.

[Hammett, the author of The Thin Man, and creator of The Maltese Falcon's Sam Spade, maybe the most famous tough guy detective of them all. Sam, who come to think of it like Marlowe, also had a judgment problem when it came to women, women wearing that damn perfume that stops a man, even a hard-boiled detective man cold, although not an assortment of Hollywood women but one up north in Frisco town.]

In Chandler's case he drew strength from his startling use of language to describe Marlowe's environment much in the way a detective would use his heightened powers of observation during an investigation, missing nothing. Marlowe was able to size up, let's say, a sizzling blonde, as a statuesque, full-bodied and ravishing dame and then pick her apart as nothing but a low-rent gold-digger. Of course that never stopped him from taking a run at one or two of them himself and then sending them off into the night, or to the clink, to fend for themselves. He also knew how to blow off a small time chiseler, a grifter, as so much flamboyance and hot air not neglecting to notice that said grifter had moisture above his upper lip indicating that he stood in fear of something if only his shadow as he attempted to pull some caper, or tried to pull the wool over Marlowe's eyes. Or noticing a frayed collar or a misshapen dress that indicated that a guy or gal was on cheap street and just maybe not on the level, maybe scratching like crazy for his or her coffee and cakes.

The list of such descriptive language goes on and on -sullen bartenders wiping a random whisky glass, flighty chorus girls arm in arm with wrong gee gangsters, Hollywood starlet wannabes displaying their wares a little too openly, old time geezers, toothless, melting away in some thankless no account job, guys working out of small-time airless no front cheap jack offices in rundown building s on the wrong side of town doing, well, doing the best they can. And cops, good cops, bad cops, all with that cop air about them of seen it all, done it all blasé, and by the way spill your guts before the billy- club comes down on your fragile head. (That spill your guts thing, by the way a trait that our Marlowe seems organically incapable of doing, except when it suited his purposes. No cop or gangster could force anything out of him, and they tried, believe me they tried. ) He had come from them, from the cops, from the D.A.s office in the old days, had worked with them on plenty of cases but generally he tried to treat them like one might a snake not quite sure whether it is poisonous or not.

At the same time Chandler was a master of setting the details of the space Marlowe had to work in- the high hill mansions and the back alley rooming houses (although usually not the burgeoning ranchero middle class locales since apparently that segment of society has not need of his services and therefore no need of a description of their endless sameness and faux gentility). He had a fix on the museum-like quality of the big houses, the places like General Sternwood's in The Big Sleep or Mrs. Murdock's in The High Window reflecting old wealth California. And he has a razor sharp sense of the arrivisite, the new blood all splash and glitter, all high-ceiling bungalow, swimming pools, and landscaped gardens.

But where Chandler made his mark was in his descriptions of the gentile seedy places, the mansions of old time Los Angeles Bunker Hill turned to rooming houses with that faint smell of urine, that strong smell of liquor, that loud noise that comes with people living too close together, too close to breath their simple dreams. Or the descriptions of the back alley offices in the rundown buildings that had seen better days populated by the failed dentists, the sly repo men, the penny- ante insurance brokers, the con artists, the flotsam and jetsam of the losers in the great American West night just trying to hang on from rent payment to rent payment. Those denizens of these quarters usually had a walk on role, or wound up with two slugs to the head, but Chandler knew the type, had the type down solid.

Nor was Chandler above putting a little social commentary in Marlowe's mouth. Reflections on such topics as that very real change after World War II in the kind of swarms that were heading west to populate the American Western shore night. The rise of the corner boys hanging, just hanging, around blasted storefronts, a few breaking off into the cranked up hot rod hell's highway night. The restless mobsters for broken back east looking to bake out in the southern California sun while taking over the vast crime markets. The wannabe starlets ready to settle for less than stardom for the right price. The old California money (the gold rush, gold coast, golden era money) befuddled by the all new waves coming in. And above all a strong sense of the rootlessness, the living in the moment, the grabbing while the grabbing was good mentality that offended old Marlowe's code of honor.

And of course over a series of books Chandler expanded the Marlowe character, expanded his range of emotions, detailed his growing world-weariness, his growing wariness, his small compromises with that code of honor that he had honed back in the 1930s. Yes, Marlowe the loner, the avenging angel , the righter of wrongs, maybe little wrongs but wrongs in this wicked old world. The guy who sometimes had to dig deep in his office desk drawer to grab a shot or six of whiskey to help him think things through. Marlowe the guy of a thousand punches, the guy of a hundred knocks on the head, the guy who had taken a more than one slug for the cause, the guy who was every insurance company's nightmare and a guy who could have used some serious Obamacare health insurance no questions asked . Yah, Marlowe.

***********
Original review

I have reviewed Raymond Chandler's seven full Phillip Marlowe epics elsewhere in this space. For those who doubt that a mere plebian detective in a once seedy genre can hold your attention and win your admiration as very, very good literature then try these four short pieces to work up the 'big' boys. You will not be disappointed. Moreover, you will get a fair peek at what makes Marlowe tick-his sense of honor, his doggedness in the face of adversity and his tilting after windmills when he gets his teeth in a case. And it does not hurt if there is a good-looking 'dame' in the bargain.

If none of the above convinces you then get this book for the preface by the master Chandler himself about his take, circa 1950, on the meaning of the detective genre as literature. As we know his special pleading then is now the wisdom of the academy.

ON BECOMING PHILLIP MARLOWE

Apparently there are many, many editions of this work. Above I have reviewed the one that has Chandler's introduction. Since then I have found a copy under the same title that has 12 stories in it many of which are different from the above. If you can find it- Vintage Paperback-1988- you will be justly rewarded because what you will get are snatches of stories with various charcters, locales, named detectives and different ending that will later go on to become The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely and Lady in the Lake. Get it if you can, if for no other reason than to see how the master noir detective writer moved the work forward. Amazing.

Updated 2013

Yah, like the man said one time the rich are different from you and me. They try , try very hard, to not let anything untoward come into their radar dust on the furniture to murder to mayhem if that what turns out to be the case when they go off the deep end. They just let the hired help pick up the mess and sort things out the best they, the help, can. And if you were trying to keep murder and mayhem away from your door in the 1940s night and if you resided in the precincts of Southern California around Los Angeles , L.A, the city of angels (and angles) then Raymond Chandler's private eye Philip Marlowe was your man. And the reason that he was your man was because he fixed up your messes, fixed it up with bandages if he had to but he fixed them, and they stayed fixed until or unless you strayed from the reservation again.

So, yah, if you needed a man you could trust, needed a guy who worked the both the seamy side and the high side and didn't miss a beat, needed a guy who didn't mind taking a punch or two, a slug or two, for good of the cause, needed a guy who for his own private reasons chased after windmills then old Marlowe was your man. Your man at twenty-five a day and expenses. Cheap at any price. Just ask the Murdocks in the tale in The High Window reviewed here, although like a lot of stuff with the rich (and maybe not just the rich) they probably have forgotten how close they came to perdition.

See the Brasher Doubloon was missing, a rare old coin, from the late Mr. Murdock's collection. So dear rich inebriated (for her asthmatic condition, okay) old, to be kind, bitch Mrs. Murdock sent for one Philip Marlowe to find the damn thing. Find it on the cheap and quietly, if possible. Problem was that the prime suspect in the theft was her beloved doted on pampered son who was into a local mobster for some serious gambling debt dough. But well before that hard fact was established some people who got in the way would up dead, very dead, for their efforts. Part of the body pile-up was due to the greed of a number of people trying to make imitation copies of the coin, part of the pile-up was due to knowing too much about the operation and part was just people getting in the way for no good reason, what would be now called collateral damage.

Needless to say Old Marlowe gets to the bottom of the whole thing, takes his usual fair share of lumps, takes his fair share of abuses from the cops when he tries, as he always does, to protect, rightly or wrongly, his client, and takes his fair share of abuse from his dear client along the way. As a bonus he also plays Sir Galahad to the rescue to Mrs. Murdock's secretary, a frail high strung young woman who was made the patsy for Mrs. Murdock's murder of her first husband out that high window of the title. All for twenty-five a day.
Yah, the rich are different from you and me.

Oh about Raymond Chandler, about the guy who wrote the book. Like I said in another review he, along with Brother Dashiell Hammett, turned those dreary gentile drawing room sleuths who dominated the reading market way back in the day on its head and gave us tough guy blood and guts detectives we could admire, could get behind, warts and all. Thanks, guys.

In Chandler's case he drew strength from his seemingly starling use of language to describe Marlowe's environment much in the way a detective would use his heightened powers of observation during an investigation, missing nothing. Marlowe was able to size up, let's say, a sizzling blonde, as a statuesque, full-bodied and ravishing dame and then pick her apart as nothing but a low-rent gold-digger. Of course that never stopped him from taking a run at one or two of them himself and then sending them off into the night, or to the clink, to fend for themselves. He also knew how to blow off a small time chiseler, a grifter, as so much flamboyance and hot air not neglecting to notice that said grifter had moisture above his upper lip indicating that he stood in fear of something if only his shadow as he attempted to pull some caper, or tried to pull the wool over Marlowe's eyes.

The list of descriptions goes on and on -sullen bartenders wiping a random whisky glass, flighty chorus girls arm in arm with wrong gee gangsters, Hollywood starlet wannabes displaying their wares a little too openly , old time geezers, toothless, melting away in some thankless no account job, guys working out of small-time airless no front cheap jack offices in rundown building s on the wrong side of town doing, well, doing the best they can. And cops, good cops, bad cops, all with that cop air about them of seen it all, done it all, blasé, and by the way spill your guts before the billy- club comes down (that spill your guts thing a trait that our Marlowe seems organically incapable of having). He had come from them, from the D.A.s office in the old days, had worked with them on plenty of cases but generally he tried to treat them like one might a snake not quite sure whether it is poisonous or not.

At the same time Chandler was a master of setting the details of the space Marlowe had to work in- the high hill mansions and the back alley rooming houses (although usually not the burgeoning ranchero middle class locales since apparently that segment of society has not need of his services and therefore no need of a description of their endless sameness and faux gentility). He has a fix on the museum-like quality of the big houses, the places like General Sternwood's in The Big Sleep or Mrs. Murdock's in The High Window reflecting old wealth California. And he has a razor sharp sense of the arrivisite, the new blood all splash and glitter, all high- ceiling bungalow, swimming pools, and landscaped gardens.

But where Chandler made his mark was in his descriptions of the gentile seedy places, the mansions of old time Bunker Hill turned to rooming houses with that faint smell of urine, that strong smell of liquor, that loud noise that comes with people living too close together, too close to breath their simple dreams. Or the descriptions of the back alley offices in the rundown buildings that had seen better days populated by the failed dentists, the sly repo men, the penny ante insurance brokers, the con artists, the flotsam and jetsam of the losers in the great American West night just trying to hang on from rent payment to rent payment. Those denizens of these quarters usually had a walk on role, or wound up with two slugs to the head, but Chandler knew the type, had the type down solid.

Nor was Chandler above putting a little social commentary in Marlowe's mouth. Reflections on such topics as that very real change after World War II in the kind of swarms that were heading west to populate the American Western shore night. The rise of the corner boys hanging, just hanging, around blasted storefronts, a few breaking off into the cranked up hot rod hell's highway night. The restless mobsters for broken back East looking to bake out in the southern California sun while taking over the vast crime markets. The wannabe starlets ready to settle for less than stardom for the right price. The old California money (the gold rush, gold coast, golden era money) befuddled by the all new waves coming in. And above all a strong sense of the rootlessness, the living in the moment, the grabbing while the grabbing was good mentality that offended old Marlowe's honor code.

And of course over a series of books Chandler expanded the Marlowe character, expanded his range of emotions, detailed his growing world-weariness, his growing wariness, his small compromises with that code of honor that he honed back in the 1930s . Yes, Marlowe the loner, the avenging angel , the righter of wrongs, maybe little wrongs but wrongs in this wicked old world. The guy who sometimes had to dig deep sometimes in his office desk drawer to grab a shot of whiskey to help him think things through. Marlowe the guy of a thousand punches, the guy of a hundred knocks on the head, the guy who had taken a more than one slug for the cause, the guy who was every insurance company's nightmare and a guy who could have used some Obamacare health insurance no questions asked . Yah, Marlowe.

Original Review

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.

I decided to give this Raymond Chandler novel a shot after a vexing round of midterm examinations. If I didn't read something light and entertaining, my head would have exploded! I'd never read noir before, but I found this book to be pretty representative of what one pictures when one thinks of noir: seedy characters and snappy dialogue in a big, dark city teeming with danger. Chandler apparently gave new life to this genre when he wrote a few (an unfortunate few) crime novels starring Phillip Marlowe, a private detective who has since become immortalized in film and T.V. Chandler didn't even start writing these books until he was in his late 50's. Thank goodness he did write them, because this book is a real hoot!
The High Window finds Marlowe on the trail of a missing coin called the Brasher doubloon. Within a few pages we begin to see an endless parade of seedy and suspicious characters, such as Mrs. Murdock, a port-drinking hothead who hires Marlowe to find the coin. Other characters include a scummy nightclub owner, a couple of dirty dames, and a cast of supporting characters both wicked and wise. At the center of it all is Marlowe, doggedly pursuing the truth through all the deceits and danger. I really can't go into the story because doing so would probably ruin the suspense for anyone who hasn't read the book. Just be prepared to see some wacky characters and great scenes.
This book wouldn't be worth mentioning at all if it weren't for the dialogue. The language in this book is so clever and snappy that it literally makes the story. You'll howl out loud at some of the smart quips Marlowe tosses off as he tries to track down the doubloon. Another interesting aspect of the book is that everything occurs in the present tense. There is almost no history to know or anything in the future to worry about. This makes the story scream along at a fast pace; so fast that you won't want to put the book down. I never really thought I'd care for crime noir, but this book makes me want to read more! Recommended.

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

I love noir/hardboiled detective stories, and Chandler is one of the best (only Hammett is on the same level). The four (longish) short stories in this volume all feature his iconic detective, Philip Marlowe. Marlowe doesn’t seem to be as well developed in these stories as in his full length novels (he seems a little less snarky and well-read here), but this is still well worth reading.

Having now read three Chandler mysteries, the others being The Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely, The High Window is my favorite. Chandler seems to have started this mystery and The Big Sleep with the same opening-chapters template; different names but very similar opening scenes. Less wise-cracking in this story.

I enjoy the fast pace of these novels, most action occurs over a span of 2-3 days.

Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler are the masters of hard-boiled detective fiction. I like Hammett for his raw power and Chandler for his style and subtlety. Rereading "Trouble is My Business" I continue to be impressed by Chandler's writing ability. He doesn't baby-feed the reader by saying "this character is a good guy"; instead he makes the reader work observing the character for a few paragraphs and then forming his/her own conclusion which may change as the story develops. This book is a compilation of 5 Raymond Chandler stories. There are 4 longer stories (48-62 pages) "Trouble is My Business", "Red Wing", "Goldfish", and "Guns at Cyrano's" plus one short story, "I'll Be Waiting". The longer stories have enough plot and character that I would call them short novels -- all 4 are very good. The short story "I'll Be Waiting" is a masterpiece. Raymond Chandler wrote all 5 of these stories during the 1930s, and they are a voyage back to a time & place that maybe never were but should have been.

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

Marlowe is called to investigate the disappearance of a coin worth 10,000 dollars, and meets an abrasive old woman and her constantly frightened secretary. For some reason, the secretary is afraid of her employer and of men and of most everything else in life. The two most obvious suspects in the theft is the son, who is unemployed and owes money, and his estranged wife. But Marlowe doesn't solve the coin's disappearance until the end of the story. We finally find out why the young secretary is so frightened.

I didn't like it as much as The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely, but Marlowe acts like he always does and we find out that he's a decent guy.

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 Philip Marlowe detective stories, while never dull, can sometimes have almost hysterical, over-the-top plots which become terribly confusing to decipher. Fortunately the cracking dialogue and bizarre characters compensate nicely. In The High Window the author takes a breather, and delivers a story which is relatively simple ... and enjoyable to read.
Like in many Marlowe stories, our naughty private eye is hired by a rich recluse. This time the recluse is a rich widow who believes her trashy daughter-in-law has stolen a rare coin inherited from her deceased hubby. As Marlowe investigates we understand that the daughter-in-law keeps some rather nasty company, and before long Marlowe is tangled in multiple homicide situation. Of course in the end it is all resolved in a surprisingly uncontrived way (..at least by Raymond Chandler standards).
My only real complaint, or rather disappointment, is the general absence of Marlowe's normally razor-sharp sarcasm. In other books Marlowe can be extremely brutish with the ladies, and the ladies all fall in love with him. In The High Window we do not see this side of Marlowe, and so he seems somewhat two-dimensional in this story.
Bottom line: most definitely not a Chandler classic, but certainly a very enjoyable read. Recommended.

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.

Chandler fans reading this book for the first time will have many "deja vu" moments. The book contains four of the twenty short stories written by Chandler in the 1930s that were warm ups for the seven novels that followed. Chandler wrote detective mystery stories, and became famous for seven novels and a number of Hollywood screen plays, mostly about crime and private detectives in the "film noir" genre of Hollywood black and white films, or what is called LA "pulp fiction". Far from being an ordinary writer of cheap crime stories, Chandler became one of America's best writers from the mid 20th century.

Chandler was a Los Angeles accountant turned writer and he developed his own careful writing style. He started by first analysing other works, such as articles in the Black Mask mystery magazine. He used those stories plus local newspaper crime articles for plot ideas. He would set some of his stories in the fictional ocean side town of Bay City which is really Santa Monica, or set his stories in west Los Angeles, or other parts of southern California. He lived in Santa Monica after being fired from his oil executive job for drinking in the 1930s. He detested the place and moved into LA proper when he became wealthy as a screenplay writer in the early 1940s while working at Paramount. In the late 1940s he moved to La Jolla, just north of San Diego. Chandler started with short fiction pieces in the 1930s and then graduated to novels in 1938-39. From the early novels he was hired to write screen plays and eventually he wrote or created 59 works including stories, screenplays, and novels. His novels with the private Detective Phillip Marlowe brought him fame including the Bogart-Bacall movie The Big Sleep.

This book contains four short stories each about 50 to 60 pages long from the 1930s. These are a warm ups to his seven novels and screenplays that followed. There are plot elements and prose that are almost a duplicate of some of the later novels. For example, the second story Finger Man has scenes and references that are almost directly inserted into The Big Sleep (1939) and Farwewell, My Lovely (1940). For Chandler lovers like myself, it is like eating chocolates to go back and be able to read these early works. Also Chandler has a four page introduction where he makes a number of comments on his writing style and philosophy at the front of the book. Trouble is my Business is the first of the four short stories.

His career did not take off until after he had written three or four novels and started to do screenplays in the mid-1940s. He was lucky in that he was able to write the screenplays and make a lot of money. He became famous for the screenplays, but simultaneously, he rose to further fame by the growth in popularity of paperback books in the 1940s. As a result, millions of his Philip Marlowe detective novels were sold and after just a few years he had moved from a run down flat in Santa Monica to a large house with an ocean view beside the Kellog family in La Jolla. He is now recognised as one of America's best writers from the 1930s through 1940s era. If you get a chance, have a look at the movie Double Indemnity, where Chandler co-wrote the screenplay with Billy Wilder at Paramount - his first attempt at this type of writing - and he and Wilder were nominated for an Oscar but they did not win. I think that is an excellent film, and it is generally regarded as one of the best films of the period.

His technique was to pull old stories apart, then change them, then re-write them as short stories, and then take that work and extend it, modify it again a second or third time or even more, and finally put together complete novels. He would take six months to write a short story - as found in the present collection, while some other mystery writers wrote a complete novel in a week - by dictation. He was not big on plots, but more of a craftsman on the individual scenes and the prose, especially descriptions of the people. He said that it took him two years to write a short description of a person getting up from a table and walking out of a room. So there is a high level of refinement and a certain style that he was able to develop as a result of this writing process. This technique is not new. Shakespeare himself used this technique in virtually every play, taking old myths, stories, and historical accounts such as King Lear. He would break them apart, change them, and make new works with new twists, turns, and addnew characters; his last play The Tempest is his thought to be his only completely original play. Chandler used to joke that if Shakespeare was alive, he would be a Hollywood writer. Chandler is a little more obvious in that some of the prose in the seven novels are almost lifted from the early works - in part because Chandler wrote only one half page increments at a time, and kept those half page writings on file to use as source materials for later works. His aim was to make each segment as complate as possible, but some of his early short stories are similar to and have almost identical names to the full novels.

In any case, this is a book that is not to be missed by Chandler fans and it is simply excellent for anyone else.

I've read hundreds of suspense thrillers,Chandler's are among the best.The art of the confection is in the suspension of disbelief,which he accomplishes by an almost surfeit of detail,which draws one into the story.Buy it,download it-if you enjoy a good,page turning yarn of detective fiction,this is the ticket to ride...

Chandler wrote his first four novels in rapid succession, then went to Hollywood for four years before writing the fifth Philip Marlowe novel, "The Little Sister." These first four are "original recipe" Chandler -- the novels that defined high-brow hard-boiled.
"The High Window" (the third) is the anomaly of the first batch because it is the only novel prior to "The Little Sister" that was written as a novel; "The Big Sleep," "Farewell My Lovely," and "The Lady in the Lake" were all built using three to four of Chandler's earlier pulp short stories. Chandler called this practice "cannibalizing."
Chandler actually put aside the third cannibalized novel, "Lady in the Lake," to work on "The High Window." It's plot is only slightly less convoluted than the other three early novels, and it is slightly contrived, but what is interesting is the way in which it deliberately re-emphasizes concerns developed in its predecessor, "Farewell, My Lovely." Chandler was pressed to make sense of a detective with so much cultural capital and the ability to turn such a fantastic phrase, and in these two novels the emphasis is on developing Marlowe's class animosities and his determination to preserve the free-agency afforded him by his vocation. He comes across as a relative high-brow determined to take out his sense of failure on those who pretend to be his betters, and who employ him, but who are phonies. It is a novel about class and about Marlowe working to control the exploitation inherent in hiring himself out.
It may not be the best of the early four novels, but "The High Window" provides a clear and deliberate vision of Chandler's original conception of Marlowe. After the hiatus in Hollywood, he would begin to loosen the detective conventions and develop Marlowe as a man in existential crisis (in "The Little Sister" and "The Long Goodbye").

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.

Really loved this one. Marlowe figures all of the angles well in advance and tells his rich, twice widowed client how it is and how it's gonna be, even while he protects her interests. And he tells the cops what he really thinks of them, outright, in what's essentially a monologue complete with his own fictional, mishandled former front page crime story. Plenty of murders to go around and, as usual with Chandler, the worst guy in the lot eventually gets it. Right there with The Long Goodbye as far as this reader is concerned.

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.

I like the right-down-to-business writing style of Raymond Chandler, and this book is no exception.

Though I only read a sample of this book, I placed it on my wish list so I can read the entire book later.

Here we have another four novellas from one of the masters of the crime story.

The four stories all have Philip Marlowe on board helping the helpless and not getting much thanks for it.

The book title - Trouble is my Business- is the pick of the tales included here where all is not as it seems, which is usually the way.

As per all Marlowe stories all concerned drink gallons of whiskey and smoke for the Olympics as we see the seedy side of Los Angeles.

Highly recommended for fans and anyone who like a great crime story.

THe Brasher Doubloon has been stolen, only Mrs. Murdock a wealthy window wants it found. No consequences for the person who took it. Shes sure its her daughter in law a former night club singer. Marlowe wants to look into things to make sure. He finds a group of shady night club people, a women who was friends with the daughter in law only now married to a gangster, and a shy and quirky women whose Murdocks secretary. You get your typical wise cracks from Marlowe around the tough guys. A nice twist in the ending thats also a bit sad and Marlowe does a good deed for a character at the end.

As other reviews have noted, 'Trouble Is My Business' is the both the name of a short story and the name of a collection of short stories by Raymond Chandler. It seems the short story collection contain differing number of stories depending on the publisher. My 1960s UK version of 'Trouble Is My Business' contains five stories including, of course, 'Trouble Is My Business'. Like all Raymond Chandler fiction, it has delicious tough guy dialogue and all sorts of nasty business going on. Sometimes the plot, even in his short stories, can be a bit muddled. But I read Raymond Chandler fiction purely for the atmosphere they project ... and not so much for the plot. Others might not find this sort of read enjoyable.

Bottom line: classic Chandler in small bites. Some taste good, others not so.

I love Chandler. The hard-boiled PI maybe isn't his invention and it is hard pressed to figure anyone else out that can do it better. Maybe a bit of Dashiel Hammett, Complete Novels, whose Red Harvest puts the violent films of today to miserable shame. Trouble is a collection of shorts featuring the beloved Philip Marlowe, who always seems to find himself tangled in a mess that is a mile deeper than it ever started out. The language is sparse and drove American literature a bit to the edge it became in later novels. Partly because of Chandler being a Brit and not really knowing the American dialect, he sort of made it up.

The best part of are the continuously flawed characters Chandler creates. Hollywood actors, Las Vegas gamblers, tycoons and misfits of all types swirl together in mayhem that is understated and portrays what America felt about Los Angeles and its participants of the 30's and 40's. It is timeless though. Many situations could very well happen in the Hollywood Hills of 2007. And you end up liking them all somehow. He is sympathetic but still manages to give every one a dose of the medicine they deserve. Marlowe is the morals the story and also the amoral example, in it for himself at many times.

I I had to picked this one up after Christina made funny of me for picking up the The Long Goodbye for the twentieth time.

Raymond Chandler wrote 4 noir novels in the late 30s and early 40s that defined the Southern California hardboiled thriller forever after. I first discovered them 41 years ago and instantly fell in love with them. The High Window, though, I thought at the time, and through several subsequent rereadings, was by far the least of the four. I hadn't reread it in at least 20 years now, but, based on some of the favorable the store comments, I read it again yesterday. My opinion of it, I'm sorry to say, hasn't changed in 41 years....
Why do I think it's only a mediocre book? Forty-one years ago I couldn't have articulated it. Now, however, it's obvious:
Because, basically, it's a boring story.
As an earlier reviewer in these columns told us, The High Window was the only one of the first 4 Chandler books that was plotted as an entirety and not cobbled together from earlier short stories that Chandler had written for the pulp magazines. This, however, instead of being a virtue, actually turns out to be the major fault in the book.
Philip Marlowe, the first-person narrator and hero, is as beguiling as ever but the story he tells -- basically the search for a missing coin of great value -- is dull and listless. Each individual character is nicely sketched, as only Chandler could do at the height of his powers, and the writing sparkles and pops. But -- and this sounds strange but is absolutely true -- the story itself could equally well have been written by Agatha Christie with Hercule Poirot as the main character. An investigation is mounted; the detective moves from one character to the next; a couple of bodies are discovered; the detective exchanges banter with the police; he talks with a few more characters; he wraps up the case and tells us who murdered whom -- probably.
There is no menace directed at Marlowe, there is no suspense, there is no interest in finding out what is going to happen to any of the other characters, there is no action at all (unless you can call finding a couple of bodies action), and the plot itself is pretty dull if you stop and think about it for a few moments.
Why is this?
The short stories that Chandler wrote in the 30s for the pulp magazines (mostly Black Mask, I believe) were just that: pulp stories. They had action, violence, movement. Things happened to Marlowe (in his various incarnations) and Marlowe made things happen to other people. Guns went off, Marlowe got bopped on the head, he -- and other people -- were frequently in danger for their lives.
When Chandler cobbled these stories together into three of his first four novels, he brought all of these elements into the freshly created books. Guns fired, Marlowe was bashed on the head, locked up in padded cells, beaten up by crooked cops, menaced by *real* gangsters. There was danger and suspense -- even if you (and Chandler) didn't always know exactly what was happening or who was doing what to whom -- or why. Chandler's exquisite writing and marvelous evocation of Los Angeles of that time was laid over these pulpish elements and transformed these gothically plotted books into literature. But literature that was exciting and impossible to put down. What *is* going to happen next in The Lady in the Lake? And why? And how is Marlowe going to get out of *this* predicament? In these three books you really want to know.
In High Window there are none of these elements and the only reason you turn the pages is because of the wizardry of Chandler's writing and the picture he draws of 1941 Los Angeles and Pasadena during a few hot summer days. Here the cops are more friendly than threatening, all violence is off-page, the semi-gangster nightclub owner and his supposedly deadly bodyguard are minor characters who manifest nothing more than a few lines of tough-guy dialogue -- which then disappears when Marlowe is hired by them to do a job....
The transportation back to this vanished era of South California is well worth reading this book for (at least for me); but as a thriller up to the standards of the other early Chandlers it is simply a non-starter.
Beware....

Perfect starting point for those wanting to find out who the hell this Chandler guy was. Way ahead of his time, and over the head of the "cat detective" set, these stories a pure gold. The John Dalmas character is essentially a raw Philip Marlowe, but the knight errant is still there, in an unrefined form. Bay City Blues, Mandarin's Jade, The Lady in the Lake...stories and attitudes that Tarrantino can only dream of ripping off. Read it now before La-La Land turns it into the next Demi Moore vehicle

This is his 3rd novel, written / published in 1942.
This story centers on a stolen rare gold coin.
Some of the characters include the matriarch of
a family, her son, his wife, the matriarch's timid
secretary, (of course) a bad guy and his stooge that
runs a gambling house, lots of cops, another p.i.,
and, oh yeah, 3 murders!!! Great writing!!!!

The High Window
by Raymond Chandler
The "High
Window" begins one hot day in Pasadena, when "everything
that grew was perfectly still in the breathless air they get over
there on what they call a nice cool day." If we don't know we are
in a Philip Marlowe novel yet, we do as soon as we meet his new
client--a wealthy, obese widow named Mrs. Murdock. From the
overgrown, dimly-lit sun room where she holds court, she gives Marlowe
his latest p.i. assignment. He's to find a rare coin, the Brasher
Doubloon, that was stolen from her possession. He's also to find her
daughter-in-law, a former nightclub singer named Linda Conquest, who
disappeared at the same time as the coin. "A charming girl--and
tough as an oak board," Mrs. Murdock tells him, through sips of
her port.
Marlowe's search for the pair leads to a tale more dense
and tangled than the thick foliage of his client's sun porch. He
quickly finds himself enmeshed with a rich gambler and his
philandering, showgirl wife; a thug with a frozen eye; and a mortician
who delves into politics. Marlowe also has to contend with the police
and a man in a sand-colored coupé who keeps tailing him. Then there
are the corpses that keep piling up in his path. There's also his
client, who has her own share of tightly-bound secrets. A
near-invalid who spends her days lying on a reed chaise lounge,
Mrs. Murdock still holds an iron grip on her effeminate son and the
fragile woman who works as her secretary.
The plot is fast-paced
and engrossing, but the real power of the novel lies in the snappy
dialogue and beautifully conveyed atmosphere. Chandler's style has
been copied endlessly by other writers over the past fifty years, but
no one can touch him. Marlowe's is a world filled with hard-eyed
Filipinos answering doors, nightclubs named the Tigertail Bar, and
women who are "all cigarettes and arched eyebrows and go-to-hell
expressions." Even his butterflies take off heavily and stagger
away "through the motionless hot scented air."
As with
the other Marlowe novels, there's the usual gratuitous wisecracks
exchanged with minor characters--the sourpuss maid; the streetwise
chauffeur; the old, watery-eyed elevator operator who breathed hard,
"as if he was carrying the elevator on his back." Despite his
cynical words, Marlowe holds a special place in his heart for the
losers in the world. He sends cash to a pitiful handwriting expert
and takes an inept detective under his wing. "The shop-soiled
Galahad," an associate calls him.
For the rest of the
characters, however, he has nothing but contempt. A tough man in a
tough world, Marlowe doesn't hide his true feelings under a bushel.
He describes the gambler's wife: "From thirty feet away she
looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like
something made up to be seen from thirty feet away." His
instructions to the portly Mrs. Murdock: "Tell her to jump in the
lake...Tell her to jump in two lakes, if one won't hold her."

Chandler's master stroke as a writer is hyperbole. Even his silences
are "as loud as a ton of coal going down a chute." He may
write with a sledgehammer, but it's the best sledgehammer around.

When I read Raymond Chandler's books I sometimes picture Phillip Marlowe as Humphrey Bogart. Chandler's wit matches Bogart's narrative style very closely. The High Window is a very enjoyable mystery, as well as a trip back in time to early 1941?

There are those who feel that The Big Sleep or Farewell My Lovely are Chandler's best work, but I disagree. As fine as they are, they were, after all, taken from his previously published short stories. Chandler was not a novelist, really. He was writer of scenes. He could spend paragraphs describing a room, or a person, or an open field, for that matter, and leave you begging for more. These four stories are the best he had to offer. Red Wind gets the most attention, usually, thanks to the classic opening paragraph, but my personal favorite is Goldfish. The character of Carol Donovan is the most exquisitely drawn hard-boiled female since Brigit O'Shaughnessy, and the finale is as good as the finale of Shane.

The title of this review is from the introduction to "Trouble Is My Business." But Raymond Chandler never had doubts about his writing. He once said, "Don't ever write anything you don't like yourself and if you do like it, don't take anyone's advice about changing it. They just don't know." Thankfully he took his own advice and this book of short stories by the master of us all will illustrate just how good the so-called pulp writing was back then, back in what was truly the golden age of crime fiction.

After jumping into the mystery-genre spotlight at the age of 51 with his classic first novel THE BIG SLEEP, Raymond Chandler went on to write six other novels which received considerably less acclaim than they deserved. THE HIGH WINDOW, published in 1942, sees Philip Marlowe, perhaps the most hard-boiled of all classic hard-boiled detectives, searching for a stolen rare coin and once again involved in the sordid affairs of the Los Angeles underworld, dealing with wealthy widows, tall blondes, showgirls, cops, and hitmen, and handling each in turn with the panache that only Marlowe could. Exquisitely plotted and written, THE HIGH WINDOW, like the rest of the Chandler library, is noir and the hard-boiled detective novel at its finest.

In this novel, what happens to the killers at the end of the book is different from the other Chandler novels. Quite a surprise--it's what DOESN'T happen to the killers in "The High Window" that shocked me.

This contains the best of Chandler, if not all of it is the best of Chandler. "Red Wind" is one of the most brilliant short stories not just in detective literature but in American Literature. The last few paragraphs are unspeakably precious, and give more insight into Marlowe's character than any of the novels. And the rest of the stories are fine too!

Chandler is at his best. Twisty plot with a string of possible. Great noir..I could here Mitchum and/or Bogie in every sentence. One can even smell the eucalyptus that used to be Old Hollywood's distinct smell.

If you like Raymond Chandler's other works, you will like this one. It is up to the same standard as The Big sleep for instance, written in that iconic kind of film noire style that he has. It really places you in 1940's L.A. Most of the men are thugs and the women are 'dumb broads' so you might have to bracket that somehow...

The four short stories in this book are jewels in the canon of crime fiction. Along with The Little Sister and The Big Sleep they represent the best of Chandler's work and that is saying a great deal both in the genre and 20th-century fiction itself.

This book could have received 5 stars, but I must confess that I did'nt like how the ending was resolved so quikly.
Still it was a solid 4 star read. I will continue to read more of Raymond Chandler.

Trouble is My Business is a collection of short stories with different PI heroes. The stories are a mixed bag and not nearly at the level of the full-length novels featuring Philip Marlowe. Read it if you must. Better yet, read Elmore Leonard or Robert B. Parker.

Noir detective fiction - this is nearly a perfect example a paragon, of the genre. It's worth reading just to see what so many movies and cartoons satirize - other than that, this book has a few quotable lines, and is fun.