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bugsizzy's review against another edition
5.0
Wonderful recreation of the classic Marlowe stories
Beautifully written, poetic, wry, and insightful. The detective story was engaging, with immersive descriptions of the exotic locales, the quips and reflections on getting old sad beautiful and profound.
Beautifully written, poetic, wry, and insightful. The detective story was engaging, with immersive descriptions of the exotic locales, the quips and reflections on getting old sad beautiful and profound.
ghostmouse's review against another edition
4.0
I love film noir and one of my favorites is Murder My Sweet with Dick Powell as Phillip Marlowe (but I also love the Long Goodbye directed by Altman and set in the 70s), but this is my first time reading a Phillip Marlowe story, and I guess now I need to go back and read some Raymond Chandler. I really liked this book. I spent a lot of time thinking what it would be like as a film. This story is set in the 80s so its kind of Long Goodbye-ish taking Marlowe to another decade from the one he is most famous in, but they've aged him up and now he is an old man, and there is something very interesting about him as an aging detective.
hsblechman's review against another edition
3.0
This is a fine novel but it is certainly not a Philip Marlowe novel
moodandmystery's review against another edition
5.0
Why I Loved The Phillip Marlowe novel That Amazon Reviewers Hated
The Raymond Chandler estate paid several writers to write Phillip Marlow detective books in the Chandler voice. I’ve read that some of them are better than others, but the Chandler fanatics especially disliked this one, called Only To Sleep.
So what did author Lawrence Osborne do wrong? For one, an aging Phillip Marlowe living in Mexico makes for a very different noir detective novel. Osborne said he couldn’t write about a 1950s Los Angeles he never knew.
Old man Marlowe is 72 years old and living in Ensenada, Baja California. Marlowe is dealing with both creaky bones and retirement boredom. He’s hired to investigate a case of insurance fraud, which takes him traveling to different towns in Mexico. It’s part travelogue, which was a bonus for me. My wife and I just scoped out Ensenada as a possible retirement spot. I can imagine why old man Marlowe was bored in retirement. (By the way, it’s no coincidence that the Chandler novel I liked best, The Long Goodbye, took me across the border to Tijuana, an intriguing city we visited for two weeks.)
Phillip Marlowe as an old man had none of the vitality of the younger version. His language in the Chandler novels was cool (for the time). It wasn’t cool in this novel though. Old man Marlowe seemed washed up. Even the other characters picked up on it. The Chandler fanatics navigated to Amazon.com to express how displeased they were. People wanted the Detective Phillip Marlowe that they knew and loved. They wanted Raymond Chandler’s original version.
The three Chandler novels I read were a fun escape to Los Angeles noir. I delved into the real Chandler. A step into a past that I only know through movies. But the novels started to feel dated, so I found it refreshing that the author veered far from readers’ expectations. Since I was never a Raymond Chandler fan before, I was enjoyed the book for what it was: a man who facing life’s inevitable changes.
I’m at an age where I can see my washed-up self down the road a little. Hey, I even checked out life in Ensenada (but I’m back in New York City for now). I’m not sure what old man Dan will be like, but I am sure he’ll be a different version of who I am now. I probably won’t even notice it until my past resurfaces to remind me. It actually has already happened. At a new job, I ran into an old colleague. We worked together somewhere else for twenty years, before she left, only to find ourselves colleagues again. We hadn’t seen each other in nine years. We caught and the “me” she remembered seemed so different. I’m glad I’m not the same person. So old age takes some skills and abilities away, but it gives us experience and hopefully some maturity. And that’s how Old man Marlowe solved the case, by relying on his 72-year-old strengths instead of the young man ones.
The Raymond Chandler estate paid several writers to write Phillip Marlow detective books in the Chandler voice. I’ve read that some of them are better than others, but the Chandler fanatics especially disliked this one, called Only To Sleep.
So what did author Lawrence Osborne do wrong? For one, an aging Phillip Marlowe living in Mexico makes for a very different noir detective novel. Osborne said he couldn’t write about a 1950s Los Angeles he never knew.
Old man Marlowe is 72 years old and living in Ensenada, Baja California. Marlowe is dealing with both creaky bones and retirement boredom. He’s hired to investigate a case of insurance fraud, which takes him traveling to different towns in Mexico. It’s part travelogue, which was a bonus for me. My wife and I just scoped out Ensenada as a possible retirement spot. I can imagine why old man Marlowe was bored in retirement. (By the way, it’s no coincidence that the Chandler novel I liked best, The Long Goodbye, took me across the border to Tijuana, an intriguing city we visited for two weeks.)
Phillip Marlowe as an old man had none of the vitality of the younger version. His language in the Chandler novels was cool (for the time). It wasn’t cool in this novel though. Old man Marlowe seemed washed up. Even the other characters picked up on it. The Chandler fanatics navigated to Amazon.com to express how displeased they were. People wanted the Detective Phillip Marlowe that they knew and loved. They wanted Raymond Chandler’s original version.
The three Chandler novels I read were a fun escape to Los Angeles noir. I delved into the real Chandler. A step into a past that I only know through movies. But the novels started to feel dated, so I found it refreshing that the author veered far from readers’ expectations. Since I was never a Raymond Chandler fan before, I was enjoyed the book for what it was: a man who facing life’s inevitable changes.
I’m at an age where I can see my washed-up self down the road a little. Hey, I even checked out life in Ensenada (but I’m back in New York City for now). I’m not sure what old man Dan will be like, but I am sure he’ll be a different version of who I am now. I probably won’t even notice it until my past resurfaces to remind me. It actually has already happened. At a new job, I ran into an old colleague. We worked together somewhere else for twenty years, before she left, only to find ourselves colleagues again. We hadn’t seen each other in nine years. We caught and the “me” she remembered seemed so different. I’m glad I’m not the same person. So old age takes some skills and abilities away, but it gives us experience and hopefully some maturity. And that’s how Old man Marlowe solved the case, by relying on his 72-year-old strengths instead of the young man ones.