Scan barcode
A review by leftoverjen
The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler
4.0
When starting this book I was tempted to sneer at what I believed to be a story built out of every private eye cliche there is.... until I realized this is where those cliches originated. Before L.A. Noire, Black Dahlia Murder, Sin City or whatever glitzy and glamorous gangster Hollywood murder mystery you prefer, there was Raymond Chandler.
His economical, hard-boiled style is the baseline for every detective-hero with a loose sense of the law and impeccable internal morals. At first, it seems easy to write off the style as just simple exposition. It looks like plot running away with confused women and men's men, that is until you get to Chapter Thirteen, which is fucking poetry. I read it twice. And you're only tempted to write off Chandler's writing as a one-trick-pony in terms of style until you get to Chapter Twenty-One. That's the exact moment I knew I was reading a master.
His economical, hard-boiled style is the baseline for every detective-hero with a loose sense of the law and impeccable internal morals. At first, it seems easy to write off the style as just simple exposition. It looks like plot running away with confused women and men's men, that is until you get to Chapter Thirteen, which is fucking poetry. I read it twice. And you're only tempted to write off Chandler's writing as a one-trick-pony in terms of style until you get to Chapter Twenty-One. That's the exact moment I knew I was reading a master.