The Black-Eyed Blonde

Starred review from January 13, 2014
Black (the pseudonym that John Banville uses for his crime fiction) isn’t the first to tackle the daunting challenge of recreating the distinctive narrative voice of Raymond Chandler’s world-weary, mean streets–walking L.A. private eye, Philip Marlowe. Despite Robert B. Parker’s lengthy experience in the PI genre, his sequel to The Big Sleep, Perchance to Dream, pales in comparison with Black’s pitch-perfect recreation of the character and his time and place. As for the language, Black nails Chandler’s creative and memorable similes and metaphors. When Marlowe shakes hands with someone, “It was like being given a sleek, cool-skinned animal to hold for a moment or two.” The title character, Clare Cavendish, wanders into Marlowe’s office to ask him to trace her lover, Nico Peterson, who disappeared two months earlier. The case appears to wrap up quickly after Marlowe learns that Peterson was the victim of a hit-and-run, but Cavendish has some major revelations in store. While the mystery is well plotted, Black elevates it beyond mere thoughtful homage with a plausible injection of emotion in his wounded lead. Author tour. Agent: Ed Victor, Ed Victor Literary Agency (U.K.).

April 28, 2014
Veteran narrator Boutsikaris turns in a mixed performance in this audio edition of Black’s resurrection of Raymond Chandler’s intrepid Bay City PI Philip Marlowe. In classic noir tradition, it all starts with a black-eyed class act walking into Marlowe’s office looking to hire the gumshoe to find missing lover Nico Peterson. Marlowe agrees to take the case, but of course nothing is what it seems, and the mean streets of the early 1950s are the dark and twisted kind, where violence, deceit, and corruption are simply the costs of doing business. Boutsikaris does a standout job of bringing Black’s characters to life. Thug or cop, heiress or moll, he gives them all distinct voices that fit well with the book’s Chandleresque prose and dialogue. But Boutsikaris’s Marlowe isn’t quite right. While the narrator offers a perfectly serviceable reading that certainly hits all the right notes, his characterization comes across as a softer, gentler creation, and less the tough, tarnished knight who sees the sins of the world with a weary, cynical eye. A Henry Holt hardcover.

February 15, 2014
Man Booker Prize-winning novelist John Banville, already disguised as mystery writer Black (Holy Orders, 2013, etc.), goes under even deeper cover to imitate Raymond Chandler in this flavorsome pastiche. Nobody knows better than Clare Cavendish that self-styled Hollywood agent Nico Peterson is dead. Clare saw her ex-lover killed by a hit-and-run driver outside the Cahuilla Club two months ago. But she hires peerless shamus Philip Marlowe to find him anyway since--though she doesn't tell Marlowe this part at first--she's just seen Nico in San Francisco, clearly alive. Marlowe follows the obvious leads without results. Sgt. Joe Green at Central Homicide is naturally skeptical of the unnamed client's claim. Nico's one marginally successful client, starlet Mandy Rogers, says she knows nothing about him, and he wasn't her agent anyway. Floyd Hanson, the Cahuilla Club manager who identified the corpse, has nothing to add to what he told the cops. The closest thing to a break in the case is Marlowe's conversation with Nico's sister, which is interrupted when she's kidnapped by a pair of Mexicans and later killed. Clearly there's more to the story than anyone's telling. But the most suspicious character is (surprise!) Marlowe's client, who's clearly up to her mascara in unsavory connections to big money, big crime and the big sleep. Black's plotting is no better than Chandler's, but he has Marlowe's voice down to a fault. Both the dialogue and the narration crawl with overblown, Chandler-esque similes ("He looked like a scaled-down version of Cecil B. DeMille crossed with a retired lion tamer"), and devotees will recognize borrowings from Farewell, My Lovely, The Little Sister and, most unforgivably, The Long Goodbye, which Black's audacious finale makes just a little bit longer. The portrait of 1950s LA is less precise than Chandler's, but the aging, reflective Marlowe is appropriately sententious. A treat for fans, even if they end up throwing it across the room.

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February 15, 2014
He put out his right hand for me to shake. It was like being given a sleek, cool-skinned animal to hold for a moment or two. That must be Philip Marlowe talking, right? It is, sort of. Black (the mystery-writing pseudonym for Irish writer John Banville) offers a stylish homage to Raymond Chandler in this tightly written caper that picks up Marlowe's life from the point the series ended. Naturally, it begins with a leggy blonde easing her silky body into Marlowe's office chair and spinning a story that turns out to be about half poppycock. Marlowe takes the bait, of course, and begins to search for a con man whose death may have been exaggerated. The plot is nearly impenetrable in classic Chandler fashion, and there are numerous allusions to the earlier books, including the surprise appearance of a character from The Long Goodbye whose presence will either enrage or enthrall devoted fans. The focus, though, as it was for Chandler, is on style and mood, and the Irishman, perhaps surprisingly, nails both. The homage game is a tricky one to play, but Black makes all the right moves. Great fun for Chandlerians.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

October 15, 2013

Man Booker prize winner John Banville again changes tack to write as Benjamin Black, here reviving Philip Marlowe. On a hot and draggy day in early 1950s Bay City, CA, a predictably stunning young woman comes to Marlowe's office to ask him to locate her former lover--just the first in a long chain of complicated events. A sharper-edged Marlowe for our time.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2014

The titular black-eyed blonde of Black's tribute to Raymond Chandler is Philip Marlowe's new client, who wants the detective to find a missing former boyfriend. But Marlowe soon learns that the boyfriend is in the morgue, and the case grows more complicated as he searches from the mansions of the city's wealthiest families to the seediest dive bars to discover why this man is so important to his client. As the bodies pile up, Marlowe struggles to separate the lies from the truth, with some grudging help from his few friends in the police department. With perhaps fewer memorable descriptions that characterized Robert B. Parker's Marlowe novels Poodle Springs and Perchance To Dream, Black (A Death in Summer; Vengeance) does deliver a more complex and satisfying mystery than other authors have done in the past. VERDICT This latest incarnation of Chandler's sleuth will appeal to fans of Chandler and Marlowe, but newcomers to one of the first great PIs in crime fiction will find much to enjoy here as well. [See Prepub Alert, 10/15/13.]--Dan Forrest, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.