A Philip Marlowe Novel by Benjamin Black (2015-03-02)

It just doesn't work. Sorry, Benjamin Black. You're a great writer, but this was a mistake.

The voice is all wrong. Americans don't say "Sunday lunch," for one thing. Many other terms are off, including "bucket" of popcorn. Your Marlowe is too garrulous. Not at all like the post-war man Chandler created. Too soft.

Combine a Raymond Chandler plot and writing by a modern day literary master and you have it all. Banville/Black brilliantly captures the LA scene in the fifties and breathes the spirit of Bogart into every page.

Really tired plot, no sense of time or place, and worst of all, makes the Marlowe character into a wimp. The writing has none of the style, vivid descriptions, or humor of Chandler, although there was one simile that amused me a little.

Benjamin Black has channeled Raymond Chandler pretty well in this contemporary novel. The self-deprecation, the irreverence, the appreciation of good-looking women are all there.

He doesn't conjure the real soul of Los Angeles that Chandler did, but that's probably not evident to those who live in California.

It's a fun and easy read: you could easily finish it in a weekend

While I am looking forward to the next Quirke installment, this was a worthy read. The story was crisp and fun, and re-'kindled' my interest in Hammet's original Marlowe stories. While a few of the phrases used by Black(Banville) did not ring Angelino-true, it was never-the-less a fun and twisty ride.

Disappointing, to say the least. Neither prose nor speech is remotely like Hammett. Plot is silly, the concatenation of two plots, unlinked except by the author's agent and editor I suspect, to fill pages. Marlowe's infatuation with the Black-Eyed Blonde is entirely unconvincing as is her behavior and motivations. Those depend on interactions with a character entirely undeveloped in the book, who makes a substantial appearance only in the last pages. Read something else.

...or a pastiche of Raymond Chandler, "The Black-Eyed Blonde" is an off-putting title for a Philip Marlowe novel as it is far more suited for a Shell Scott adventure by Richard S. Prather, even if, as the author, in his endnotes, asserts, it is a title of Chandler's own choosing for an unwritten story.
It takes a certain hubris to reach out and glom onto a highly celebrated author's famous character(s) more than six decades later and try to continue Chandler's quality of writing.
In this novel, Benjamin Black, conveniently ignoring the minor revival of the Chandler/Marlowe oeuvre attempted by the late Robert B. Parker several decades ago, attempts to make "The Long Goodbye" even longer by extending Chandler's final completed novel into a convoluted last confrontation with a far from worthy friend.
It doesn't work any more than did Robert Altman's 1973 liberty-taking movie departure from "The Long Goodbye." In fact, all it really does is piss off Chandler aficionados such as this reader!
Warning to those who would take another crack at such an ill-conceived endeavor, pass by. Chandler and his knight errant belong to the ages, and are not to be trifled with by literary posters!

The Black-Eyed Blonde

“Benjamin Black” is the pen name of novelist John Banville who lives in Dublin Ireland and wrote a best-selling series of novels. This novel uses the character “Philip Marlowe”, a private investigator, created by Raymond Chandler, an accountant.

On a Tuesday afternoon in summer a woman entered Philip Marlowe’s office. Mrs. Cavendish wore a short veil and gloves. Her hair was blonde and her eyes black. She wants Nico Peterson found. He worked on the fringes of the movie business. Mrs. Cavendish is quite rich and doesn’t want to use the police (Chapter 1). Marlowe visits Peterson’s home and talks to a neighbor. Two men came by last week (Chapter 2). Marlowe then visited a Beanery and learned two Mexican businessmen asked about Peterson. A friend on the police force told him Peterson was dead, a hit-and-run victim (Chapter 3). Marlowe goes to meet Mrs. Cavendish, and also her brother and husband.

Clare makes a shocking statement (Chapter 4)! They talk some more. Clare was there when Peterson was killed (Chapter 5)! Marlowe learns more about the details of Nico’s death (Chapter 6). He visits the manager of that club to learn more (Chapter 7). [Is there a clue here?] He meets Mrs. Langrishe and is warned of danger (Chapter 8), then that starlet (Chapter 9). Marlowe goes to Peterson’s home and meets his sister Lynn, who identified the body. Then two Mexicans walked in (Chapter 10). When he awoke Miss Peterson was gone and the house was a mess from a thorough search (Chapter 12). Marlowe tells Bernie Ohls what happened. Then Clare visits him (Chapter 13). A telephone call from the police tells they found Lynn Peterson’s body on a lonely road (Chapter 15). A bid man in an expensive car questions Marlowe about his knowledge of Nico Peterson (Chapter 16).

Marlowe called a discreet doctor for Clare’s brother (Chapter 17). Marlowe visits the Cahuilla Club and is given a drink with a Mickey Finn (Chapter 18). He was tied to a chair when he awoke. Beside him were the two Mexicans. Somehow Marlowe overpowered his captors, seized a pistol, and ordered them into the pool (Chapter 19). The police caught Floyd Henson but Wilberforce Canning caught a flight to Toronto. We read about the fate of the others (Chapter 20). Marlow woke up at noon affected by the nine drinks he downed. Then he evaluated the situation. He met Mrs. Cavendish for lunch and asked her for an explanation (Chapter 21).

It was a slow day at the office until he got a telephone call from a man: Nico Peterson! Marlowe met him at the train station; he offered Marlowe $100 to deliver a suitcase to a man. The suitcase had ten kilos of a white powder in a false bottom. Nico talks about the mystery (Chapter 22). [Too talkative?] Marlowe called Bernie to fill him in and tell about the key to the locker at the railroad station (Chapter 23). Clare called and Marlowe went to the family mansion. There he met Terry! Terry tells Marlowe about his life in Acapulco. Then a man with a gun shows up, the gun goes off, and a body hits the floor! Mr. Cavendish leaves the room, Mrs. Cavendish cries (Chapter 24). Police squad cars showed up and processed the people. Later Marlowe reconsidered what happened. And he never got paid for this job (Chapter 25)!

This is a well-written story that uses characters from Raymond Chandler’s novels to create this fiction. The ‘Author’s Note’ thanks those who helped. The story keeps your interest but at the end I wondered if it was worth the time spent.

While this was a decent enough, if slight, mystery novel, I never felt it actually channeling the ghost of Raymond Chandler or his famous creation, Phillip Marlowe, except in the first few pages where Marlowe met his new client, Clare Cavendish. The first sentence of the book promised much that was never delivered: "It was one of those Tuesday afternoons in summer where you wonder if the earth has stopped revolving. The telephone on my desk had the air of something that knows it's being watched." For me, that was the best part of the book, and the rest went slowly down hill in a confusing-at-times mystery. The author took a lot of time to tell a story that in the end just seemed flat.

The character of Clare Cavendish was part of the problem. I never figured out why the woman seemed to have so much trouble remembering a conversation right in the middle of having one - was she improvising as she went along, or had true memory issues, or was easily distracted. It didn't make a lot of sense, and was never explained by the author. Several characters who were important to the plot appeared out of Marlowe's past at the very end of the book after having been mentioned in passing several times -- I had a "watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat" feeling, because it seemed to be rather contrived, almost as though the author had written himself into a corner and didn't know how to get out of it. Key characters either disappeared, or made one appearance and then were never seen again even though they were important to the plot.

Part of the problem with the book for me has to do with the author being Irish and apparently unfamiliar with Southern California. Granted that many readers were not even alive in 1950 when the book was set, and many more will not be from Southern California even if they are in the right age group, I wonder how many will feel as I do that there was not much sense of place in this novel. In the interest of disclosure, I am in the right age group and from Southern California, so perhaps I feel this more keenly than some will...I lived in Los Angeles until I was 5 years old and made many trips back to the area with my parents over the next 10 years or so. Black just didn't nail it for me. I can see the bungalows on the side streets clearly in my mind's eye, as well as the wonderful old Bradbury Building and Union Station,which would only have been about 15 years old at the time this book was set. It also surprised me that throughout the book, Marlowe never got a decent meal in a restaurant, as many of the iconic locales in Los Angeles were booming at that time. I was also surprised by an off-hand remark made by Marlowe about the late actress Jean Harlow: "Harlow had talent?" At the time the novel was set, Harlow had been dead for several years, but she had been mourned deeply by the viewing public. I perhaps would have been more forgiving of the shortcoming of this slight mystery novel if the author had faithfully recreated old Los Angeles. I understand that the other books written by Benjamin Black are much superior to "The Black-Eyed Blond" and I intend to give them a try.

It’s difficult to imagine being handed the task of writing a Philip Marlowe novel. Raymond Chandler, the original author is now such an icon of classic crime/noir fiction that it would just be too daunting for most authors to attempt. On the other hand, what an honor to be asked to do so! Benjamin Black (pseudonym of Man Booker Prize-winning novelist John Banville) was an excellent choice in my opinion as he captures much of what we readers look for in a Marlowe novel.

Set in early 1950’s LA, of course, the plot surrounds a case presented to PI Philip Marlowe by the titular black-eyed blonde, Claire Cavendish. It seems she wants him to find her former lover. Almost immediately, Marlowe discovers the guy had previously been killed in a hit-and-run but that Ms. Cavendish has since seen him walking the streets of San Francisco. From there events take off in all directions and it isn’t long before Marlowe finds himself entwined among the rich and famous, movie stars, the underworld, and of course, the femme fatale.

The author totally captures the atmosphere of a Chandler novel, the mood of the city, the action of brutal fights, dead bodies, and an exquisite investigation. He also captures the essence of the character of Marlowe, himself, truly a testament to the skills of this author. That being said, this is not an exact replica of a Raymond Chandler Philip Marlowe novel. While Black does come close to the style and all of those memorable lines that Chandler seemed to come up with so effortlessly, I think he wisely steered clear of overdoing that for fear it would result in a sense of fakery. There are still plenty of one liners and amazingly descriptive phrases, very much like Chandler’s style, but thankfully, the story is not plastered with them.

I would also recommend that you first read Chandler’s ‘The Long Goodbye’ before diving into this one. Several characters and circumstances from that story are involved here and, in fact, this novel is pretty much a sequel to that one. While you can read and enjoy this one on its own, there is a small but necessary information dump near the end of this novel for those who haven’t read ‘The Long Goodbye’.

Overall, this is a superb novel that Chandler fans will certainly appreciate. For those who have never read a Philip Marlowe novel, this is very enjoyable noir fiction and will likely lead you to seek out the original Chandler stories.