Let me start by saying this particular version, I notice, is not available. That is good because this is the worst kindle conversion I have seen yet In the entire book when a word has the letters "cl" a "d" is used, therefore close becomes dose and clear becomes dear in the ENTIRE book. Periods appear in the middle of a sentence, sometimes in the middle of a word. Numbers sometimes appear in place of letters. The last ten chapters have a misspelled word on nearly every page.

Now, about the story. This is the best Phillip Marlowe I have read to date. I scored the story a 5 star, not the typing, as that is not the author's fault. In this book Marlowe is involved in a short case that comes to a quick close and then starts another case. You just know the two have to be connected, or they wouldn't both be in the book, but you can't figure out how, but they do. And the end of the book has an unexpected twist. You seem to suspect this twist, but the closer you get to the end it seems unlikely, but it still ambushes you, I highly recommend.

My review here is a drop in the bucket compared with the great number of them all. Also, book reviews at Amazon are often hits and misses and often do not contain what I want to know. I prefer not to discuss the synopsis. There are tons of synopses all over the web and so you can find those anywhere. Again, I simply don't feel they belong in a book review. I want to know other things.

If you've not read anything by Raymond Chandler, then the first thing that you'll notice is his descriptive writing. I love it! Take a simple phone booth call, "I dropped my nickel and dialed his number just for fun." There are too many great lines to count, but another of my favorites is, "A few tentative raindrops splashed down on the sidewalk and made spots as large as nickels." I can almost hear Humphrey Bogart reading the book to me.

The film is best known for its confusion, but the book irons those issues straight out. What is really interesting to me is how the then-modern world saw itself. They refer to old fashioned values as Victorian. Homosexuality was out there in a kind of don't ask don't tell way, much like the 80s, actually. However, they were not afraid to notice it. In fact, one man goes both ways in the book! Casual sex did exist, despite what the Hollywood Hays Code wanted everyone to believe. However, I see a lot of misinformed folks making statements about this. City life was different than small-town life. A small town in California is incredibly different than a small town in other parts of the country. Morals are only what a community makes them to be. They shouldn't be forced on anyone and this book actually kind of leads you to that kind of understanding. Morals are personal, not law. Too many confuse that these days.

The steady paced reader could finish this book in less than 7 hours, without any breaks. However, I didn't read it at a steady pace, unless you call crawling along a steady pace and in a way that's really what it was. I liked to savor his words. Raymond Chandler is a descriptive genius. Now there comes a problem too. When there is too much of it, it kind of sounds overdone. There were only a couple of times though that I saw this problem. I have to admit that his craft was interesting because he normally balanced it with interesting dialog with a lot of sarcasm. "... you have to hold your teeth clamped around Hollywood to keep from chewing on stray blondes."

The slanguage is fascinating. If you've never read anything like this before, you're sure to learn a whole bunch of new slang. For example, a police badge is called a "buzzer" and I think "buttons" was police, which is probably referring to their uniforms if I even had that right but you get the idea.

The story is actually two of them. There is a link between them but this easily could have been broken up into two novellas. If I had to make a complaint, it would be the very ending. I think more explanation of someone's intention is necessary but I think that's only an error of time and science. In that day, health and the psyche were still in the early stages and many things they believed then are not necessarily how it worked. I know that sounds cryptic but it's the best way I can describe it without spoiling a single thing.

All in all, it's simply a fantastic book! I think even those who don't like mysteries would enjoy it because of its prose alone. If you're easily offended though, stay away. This is not a book for those kinds of pansy people, which I think Chandler would call them today. This is about what people were like and the morals that they had. It is to be enjoyed, not scorned.

A great 1940s detective novel. It was made into a fine movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Just a few questions to be answered within the story: what does Eddie Mars have on the Sternwoods? Where is Eddie Mars' wife? What happened to Sean Regan? Why is Gwyn Geiger blackmailing the Sternwoods? Why is Harry Jones following Philip Marlow? What did General Sternwood hire Marlow to do? What was going on at Lavern Terrace the night Gwyn Geiger was was murdered? Who murdered Geiger? Was it the Sternwoods' chauffeur? Joe Brody? Eddie Mars? Somebody else? How did the the Sternwoods' chauffeur wind up dead in the big black Packard under 30 feet of water off Lido pier? Who moved Geiger's body? Why does Marlow find General Sternwoods' younger daughter nude and drugged at Lavern Terrace? Why does she turn up nude in his bed later on? Read the book to find out the answer to these questions and a whole lot more.

I first read this book - - as a paperback - - back in my teens, and it stuck with me ever since. I eventually became an author myself, and during the course of writing my third novel I referenced "The Long Goodbye" by way of the Gin and Rose's Lime Juice cocktail known as a Gimlet which is an integral part of Chandler's tale. Having downloaded the first few sample chapters, just to double-check my source material, I found myself once again hooked by Raymond Chandler's prose, at which point I decided to read the whole book again. I wasn't disappointed. If you've never read a Raymond Chandler novel featuring private eye Phillip Marlowe, do yourself a favor and download this fine book. It's complex story full of wry humor, snappy dialogue, hard-boiled tough guys and a healthy dose of twists and turns. I won't spoil the fun by giving away any of the plot details, but I will leave you with Phillip Marlowe's unique description of what is arguably the most popular morning beverage in the world:

"I went to the kitchen to make coffee - - yards of coffee. Rich, strong, bitter, boiling hot, ruthless, depraved. The lifeblood of tired men."