"Farewell, My Lovely" by Raymond Chandler

The second book about Philip Marlowe by Raymond Chandler is equally impressive as his first one. The same hard-boiled style, a cynical and dark representation of Los Angeles in the 1940s which rings more real than most of the Hollywood's make-believe fairy tales. The story is just as complicated, if not more, than in the first book. The characters are just as negative, not even the cops managing to squeeze out much goodness and morals.

Marlowe does not really have a client this time, being at the wrong (right?) place at the wrong time he gets involved with ex-con Moose Malloy, a giant of man, who's looking for the love of his live, Velma Valente. The person who eventually hires Marlowe, as a bodyguard, turns, towards the end of the book, to want to kill him, because he was on track to discovering the identity of Velma, who's now married to a billionaire, and leads the decadent and spoiled life of a rich widow, while her husband still being alive, sleeping around profusely, and apparently wanting to include Marlowe in her collection as well.

One things that bothers me about Marlowe, as I read more and more books about him, is not his hard-boiled style, which at times makes it hard to be believable, but is very entertaining, neither is his apparent ability always to get the upper hand in conflicts, no matter how beaten up he gets, or what odds he's against, but that damn apparent charm, or charisma, or whatchamacallit, that makes every beautiful woman (and they are ALL beautiful in the books, apparently LA in 1940s was teeming with gorgeous ladies) drop down her panties (or desperately want to) as soon as she lays eyes on his 6'3'' frame or hears his hard-boiled voice. A bit over the top, but I understand that it was the fashion at the time.

This is a very enjoyable book. I especially enjoyed the hard-boiled dialogue between Marlowe and various tough guys, cops and tough girls. Some of Chandler's books are not available in audio unabridged (and I almost stopped reading books with my eyes, but only with my ears for years now), and that loses all the charm, since the most enjoyment is to be found in the scenes that are not essential for the plot, but are kind of outlet for Chandler to show off his hard-boiledness and perceptiveness in dialogue and witty and insightful descriptions.