Playback (1958)

Marlowe is employed by lawyer Clyde Ulmney, to follow a female departing from a train. To follow a Eleanor King and report her destination. But Marlowe wants more information especially when there is a dead body involved.
Another excellent well-written story. A re-read. ( )

A private detective follows a woman and doesn't feel like stopping.

1/4 (Bad).

Very little happens, nothing ends up mattering, and everything turns out to be exactly what it seemed like from the beginning. It was published posthumously, and it's supposed to be the last Marlowe novel Chandler completed, but I'm skeptical.

(Apr. 2021) ( )

It feels like vacation for Marlowe with pieces of the case falling together more implausibly than women into his arms 5 seconds after meeting him with zero effort. The writing is still fast but the action and plot feel half-hearted with little to solve or fight for. ( )

Not the most riveting thing Raymond Chandler ever wrote (and it's a direct sequel to his previous novel The Long Goodbye, so don't start here if you're new to Chandler), but hey...it's better than The Little Sister. The "mystery," such as it is, loses steam well before the book's conclusion, but an older, randier Philip Marlowe has some interesting encounters with various walk-on characters at a swanky beach hotel while trying to solve a murder that may or may not have actually happened. (His conversation with the physically withered but mentally acute Henry Clarendon IV is especially good.) Derived from a screenplay that went unpublished in the author's lifetime, this final full-length Marlowe adventure will entertain Chandler's fans as long as they're not expecting too much.

In terms of packaging, Playback is my favorite of the Black Lizard trade paperback editions of Chandler's works. See that shade of cool mint green on the front and back covers? It perfectly evokes the atmosphere of the novel, and the brighter, more acidic green on the spine looks fantastic on my bookshelf. ( )

Not the best Chandler. Apparently, it was the last novel in the Marlowe series. Others have nicely summarized the plot that finds Marlowe trying to understand why he has been asked to follow a woman arriving on the Santa Fe superliner. The plot's a bit weak, but you don't read Chandler for the plot. It's the characterizations and language that make Chandler so special. ( )