off his bed. When Marlowe meets a nice girl, such as Anne Riordan inFarewell, My Lovely, he describes her by saying, “Her nose was small and inquisitive, her upper lip a shade too long and her mouth more than a shade too wide.” Her hair is brown, not blond, however, so Marlowe is not really attracted to her. “She looked as if she had slept well. . . . Nice teeth, rather large.” He is trapped in that traditional male quandary: He respects the nice woman, the madonna, but he is sexually attracted to the whore.

Eventually Marlowe does sleep with a woman: Linda Loring in The Long Goodbye. Their encounter is a perfunctory one-night stand during which she begs him to marry her and he refuses. In Playback, Chandler’s last and least respected novel, Marlowe actually marries, yet his sexual escapades seem gratuitous and sadistic. His “romantic” interlude with the character Berry Mayfield sounds almost like a rape:She started for the door, but I caught her by the wrist and spun her around. . . . I must have been leering a little because she suddenly curled her fingers and tried to claw me. . . . I got the other wrist and started to pull her closer. She tried to knee me in the groin, but she was already too close. Then she went limp and pulled her head back and closed her eyes.

Some critics have suggested that Marlowe remains chaste not because he is following a code of honor, but because he really prefers men to women. In Farewell, My Lovely, Marlowe meets a sailor, Red Norgaard, and describes him in a way that leaves no doubt that Marlowe finds him attractive:He had the eyes you never see, that you only read about. Violet eyes. Almost purple. Eyes like a girl, a lovely girl. His skin was as soft as silk. Lightly reddened, but it would never tan. . . . His hair was that shade of red that glints with gold.

Chandler defended his creation, Philip Marlowe, against accusations of homosexual tendencies. In fact, Marlowe’s chastity can be understood as a manifestation of the moral code of an English public schoolboy.

The Big Sleep

First published: 1939

Type of work: Novel

In a corrupt 1930’s Hollywood, Philip Marlowe, a hard-boiled detective, solves the mystery of the disappearance of his client’s son-in-law.

The Big Sleep was Chandler’s first novel, and some critics say that it is his best, In it, Chandler’s knightly hero, Philip Marlowe, fights vice, particularly materialism and sex, and champions the virtues of loyalty and friendship.

Everything in this unseasonably wet October in Southern California is damp and unnaturally green, a color that Chandler associates with corrupt female sexuality. Marlowe meets his client, General Sternwood, an elderly invalid, in a steamy greenhouse filled with plants “with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men.” Sternwood wants Marlowe to find out why he is being blackmailed for his daughter Carmen’s gambling debts. Marlowe soon discovers that the blackmailer, Arthur Gwynn Geiger, is a pornographer who uses Carmen as a model. Carmen’s boyfriend, Owen Taylor, kills Geiger, and then gets killed himself.

Joe Brody, a small-time racketeer, steals some nude photos of Carmen and tries to blackmail the Sternwoods. Carol Lundgren, Geiger’s male lover, murders Brody in mistaken revenge for Geiger’s death. The blackmail case is resolved. Yet, out of a sense of loyalty for General Sternwood, Marlowe continues work on the case, now to solve the disappearance of Sternwood’s son-in-law, Rusty Regan, whom the old man loved.

Carmen has killed Rusty Regan, and her sister Vivian, Regan’s wife, knows this. Vivian’s loyalty to her father causes her to call on Eddie Mars, the most powerful mobster in Hollywood, to help her cover up her sister’s crime. In return, Mars expects to be able to blackmail Vivian out of much of her father’s fortune. Marlowe despises Mars because he values only money and power and will do anything to get it. Mars disguises the disappearance of Rusty Regan by holding his own wife, Mona, prisoner, then spreading the rumor that she ran off with Regan. In contrast, Mona is loyal to her husband and readily goes along with his plans because she loves him. Marlowe falls in love with her, as much for her moral beauty as her physical appearance.

Marlowe deduces that Carmen killed Regan; she is insane and will do anything to get sex. Carmen had propositioned Regan, her sister’s husband. When he refused her, she killed him. Out of the loyalty Marlowe feels for General Sternwood, he agrees to protect the general from the knowledge that his daughter killed his only friend. In return, Marlowe extracts a promise from Vivian to put Carmen in a mental hospital.

Marlowe has solved the crimes he was hired to investigate. Yet the two major criminals, Carmen and Eddie Mars, remain unpunished, so Marlowe is discouraged. All his effort and sacrifice did not make much progress against the evil and chaos in the world, General Sternwood, whom Marlowe worked so hard to protect, is old and nearly dead. Marlowe fell in love with Mona Mars, but in vain. Marlowe concludes by saying, “On the way downtown I stopped at a bar and had a couple of double Scotches. They didn’t do me any good.”

Farewell, My Lovely

First published: 1940

Type of work: Novel

Philip Marlowe helps a good-hearted thug find his old girlfriend among the demimonde of Los Angeles and Bay City (Santa Monica).

Farewell, My Lovely, Chandler’s second novel, is filled with murder and corruption, yet it is essentially a love story. It begins on a warm day near the end of March in south central Los Angeles. Moose Malloy, a huge, dim-witted ex-convict, enters a bar called Florian’s searching for Velma Valento, the girlfriend he left behind eight years before, when he entered prison. Marlowe happens to be there to see Malloy kill the manager of the bar and maim the bouncer. Malloy escapes, and Marlowe makes a report to the police.

Curiosity drives Marlowe to look for Velma. He follows the leads to the home of Jessie Florian, the alcoholic widow of the former bar owner. She acknowledges that Velma used to sing at the bar, and she gives Marlowe a photograph of the missing woman. Marlowe receives a call from Mr. Lindsay Marriott. Marriott hires the detective to accompany him to a remote canyon in Malibu, where he will deliver ransom for a stolen jade necklace. When they arrive, Marriott is killed, and Marlowe is knocked unconscious.

When Marlowe comes to, he is met by Anne Riordan, a spunky, intelligent woman who happens by to check out the unusual lights in the canyon. She is the daughter of the former police chief of Bay City, and she decides to help Marlowe solve the case, although he balks at the idea. She discovers that the jade necklace belongs to Helen Grayle, the wife of a very rich man.

Marlowe discovers that Lindsay Marriott holds a mortgage on Jessie Florian’s house; this is the indirect connection between Helen Grayle and Moose Malloy. Grayle invites Marlowe to her house. She is a beautiful blond, and Marlowe finds her very attractive. She is married, however, and so, according to Marlowe s chivalrous code of honor, she must remain unattainable as the Holy Grail. It is probably no accident that her name is homophonous with the elusive goal of the medieval knights. She throws herself into Marlowe’s lap, and he succumbs to the temptation and kisses her. Just then, her husband walks in. Marlowe exits, embarrassed.

After he returns to his office, he is met by an American Indian named Second Planting. Planting drives Marlowe to the home of Jules Amthor, a phony psychic. There, Marlowe is beaten unconscious. He comes to, only to be beaten again by two Bay City police officers. When he reawakens, he realizes that he has been drugged by Dr. Sonderborg, a Bay City drug dealer. Marlowe escapes Sonderborg’s clutches and flees to the home of Anne Riordan. She feeds him, dresses his wounds, and offers him her bed. His principles make him refuse and return to his apartment alone.

Lieutenant Randall of the Los Angeles Police Department warns Marlowe off the case. Marlowe continues anyway, by going to interview the corrupt chief of the Bay City Police, John Wax. Marlowe discovers that the town is being run by the racketeer Laird Brunette, who owns the Bay City Belvedere Club and two gambling ships anchored in international waters three miles offshore. Brunette is a friend of Helen Grayle.

That night, Marlowe hires attractive sailor Red Norgaard to take him out to one of the gambling ships so that he can talk to Laird Brunette. He gives the racketeer a message on his card for the missing Moose Malloy. Marlowe returns to his apartment at about 10 p.m. He telephones Helen Grayle and invites her over for a drink. He falls asleep waiting for her, and, when he wakes, Moose Malloy is in his apartment.

When Grayle arrives, Malloy hides in Marlowe’s dressing room. Marlowe accuses Grayle of killing Marriott, and Grayle pulls a gun on Marlowe. Malloy comes out of the closet because he recognizes Helen Grayle’s voice as that of Velma Valento, his lost love. He suddenly realizes that she was the one who betrayed him to the police eight years previously. Grayle shoots Malloy five times in the stomach, then escapes and disappears. Malloy dies.

Anne Riordan congratulates Marlowe, but he still refuses to kiss her. Three months later, a detective finds Velma/Helen Grayle in Baltimore; she shoots him, and then herself, rather than be taken prisoner. Marlowe relates this story to Lt. Randall at the end of the novel. He ends on a note of regret: “I rode down to the Street floor and went out on the steps of the City Hall. It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way—but not as far as Velma had gone.”

Velma is the “lovely” of the title to whom Marlowe is bidding farewell. He could never love the homey Anne Riordan as long as the dangerous, blond Velma obsessed him, as she did both Moose Malloy and Lindsay Marriott. Those two men loved her, and, in return, she murdered them.

The High Window

First published: 1942

Type of work: Novel

A rich Pasadena widow hires Philip Marlowe to find a rare old coin.

Chandler’s third book, The High Window, tells a story of personal tyranny and the misuse of money and power. The novel begins in front of an old, redbrick home in Pasadena, California. It is summer and much warmer there, in the San Gabriel Valley, than it is over the hill in Hollywood, where Philip Marlowe lives.

Marlowe is in Pasadena at the request of the wealthy widow Elizabeth Bright Murdock, a drunken, domineering matron. She wants Marlowe to find a valuable coin, the Brasher Doubloon, that has disappeared from her safe. She asserts that her flamboyant daughter-in-law, the former Linda Conquest, a nightclub singer, stole the coin. Linda’s marriage to Elizabeth’s son, Leslie Murdock, has been faltering, and Linda has moved out of the Pasadena house and gone into hiding.

Elizabeth Murdock has a secretary, Merle Davis, who intrigues Marlowe. She is blond and could be beautiful, but she wears no makeup. Merle is afraid of men because she suffered sexual harassment at the hands of Horace Bright, her former employer and Elizabeth’s first husband. Marlowe feels attracted to Merle and protective of her. She gives him the names of Lois Magic, who was Linda’s former roommate, and Louis Vannier, Lois’s escort.

Leslie Murdock follows Marlowe to his office to find out why his mother hired a detective. His father was Horace Bright, who supposedly committed suicide when he lost all of his money in the stock market crash of 1929. Leslie is tied to his mother’s purse strings, and he has rebelled by marrying a nightclub singer and running up twelve thousand dollars worth of gambling debts at Alex Morny’s Idle Valley Club, a gambling house in the San Fernando Valley.

Marlowe discovers that Lois Magic, Linda’s former roommate, has married Alex Morny. He confronts a man who has been tailing him, who turns out to be another detective, George Anson Phillips, who claims he has been hired to tail Leslie. Phillips asks for Marlowe’s help on the case, but when Marlowe shows up at his apartment, he finds Phillips shot dead.

Marlowe goes downtown to interview a coin dealer, Elisha Morningstar, who, curiously, offers to sell him the Brasher Doubloon for a thousand dollars. When Marlowe returns to his office, however, he finds that the Brasher Doubloon has been delivered to him through the mail. He puts it in hock at a pawn shop for safekeeping. He telephones Elizabeth Murdock, who tells him that the doubloon has been returned to her. Returning to Morningstar’s office, Marlowe finds him murdered.

The police are now suspicious of Marlowe, because he has discovered two dead men in as many days. After they interrogate him in his apartment, he receives a call inviting him out to the Idle Valley Club to talk to Alex Morny. He meets with Morny and with Linda Conquest-Murdock, who explains that she hates her husband’s mother because she mistreats Merle, her secretary.

Marlowe is summoned to his apartment, where he finds Merle, who is hysterical. She believes that she murdered Horace Bright in 1929 by giving him a fatal push out a window. Elizabeth has encouraged that idea in Merle and has let her believe that Elizabeth was protecting her by making the blackmail payments to Louis Vannier to keep that truth hidden. Now Merle has discovered Vannier dead in his house, and she believes that she killed him, too.

Marlowe calms Merle and goes to Vannier’s place. There he discovers some photographs proving that Elizabeth pushed her husband out the window and that Leslie killed Vannier, who had previously killed Phillips and Morningstar. Leslie stole the doubloon from his mother to copy it with Vannier. They hired Phillips to sell the coin to Morningstar. Phillips got nervous and sent it to Marlowe. The other Brasher Doubloons were fakes. Marlowe returns the coin to Elizabeth, but he refuses to return her secretary. He personally drives Merle back to her family in Kansas, where she recovers from her big-city neuroses within a week. The “shop-soiled Galahad” had done his duty again.

The Long Goodbye

First published: 1953

Type of work: Novel

A beautiful woman hires Philip Marlowe to protect her alcoholic husband, a successful author, from his self-destructive actions.

The theme of The Long Goodbye, the sixth of Chandler’s seven novels, is again the corruption of American society, especially its rich. It is also about alienation and the need for love and friendship.

Marlowe befriends a charming drunk, Terry Lennox, in the parking lot of a swank Beverly Hills restaurant. Terry comes to him a few months later, and Marlowe drives him down across the U.S. border into Tijuana. It seems that Terry’s wealthy wife, Sylvia, the daughter of Harlan Potter, a newspaper magnate, has been murdered, and the police suspect Terry. The police arrest Marlowe as an accessory when he pulls into the driveway of his Hollywood Hills home after the long trip back from the Mexican border town.

The police release Marlowe after they receive a written murder confession from Terry, as well as the news that he has died in Mexico. The police warn Marlowe off the case, as do several others, including Linda Loring. Linda, the disenchanted wife of a physician, is the sister of the murdered Sylvia. Later, she becomes Marlowe’s lover for a single night.

Meanwhile, Eileen Wade, the beautiful wife of a successful writer, Roger Wade, hires Marlowe to rescue her husband from a disreputable clinic for wealthy alcoholics. After Marlowe does so, Eileen begs him to stay with her husband to keep him sober long enough to finish another novel. Marlowe remains for a while but then leaves, disgusted with Roger’s drunken confessions of adultery with Sylvia Lennox and with Eileen’s seductive behavior. Marlowe returns to the Wade house a week later to have lunch with Roger. Roger gets drunk and passes out, and Marlowe stays near the house to watch over him. When Eileen returns from shopping that afternoon, however, Roger is dead in the study, with a bullet through his head.

Lieutenant Bernie Ohls, Marlowe’s old friend, investigates the death. He disagrees with the official finding, which ruled that Roger’s death was a suicide. Instead, Ohls points out evidence to Marlowe that Eileen Wade sneaked into the house and shot her husband while Marlowe was outside and a noisy motorboat was passing by, covering the sound of the gun.

Marlowe and Howard Spencer, Roger’s publisher, go to Eileen’s house and confront Eileen with this evidence. Marlowe also reveals the fact that, in England during World War II, Eileen had been married to Terry Lennox, who used the name Paul Marston then. She thought that he had been killed by the Nazis. She learned that he was alive only after she met him accidentally in Idle Valley (Chandler’s name for the San Fernando Valley), after he had married Sylvia.

That night, Eileen commits suicide by swallowing an overdose of sleeping pills. She leaves a note confessing that she killed Sylvia Lennox because she felt that Sylvia had stolen both of her husbands. Eileen killed Roger because she was angry about his affair with Sylvia and she wanted to make it look like he was guilty of her murder.

Marlowe publishes her confession to clear Terry Lennox’s name of guilt in Sylvia’s death. He makes love to Linda Loring, who is divorcing her husband, yet he refuses to marry her and live on her father’s money. Lennox, who supposedly died in Mexico, comes to Marlowe with a darkened complexion and a new name, Señor Maioranos (“Mr. Better Years”). He faked his suicide with the help of some gangsters to make his murder confession seem more plausible.

Marlowe despises Lennox for his lack of integrity. He returns the five-thousand-dollar bill that Lennox had sent him earlier in payment for helping him escape the country. When Lennox asks him why he refuses the payment, Marlowe tells him, “You had standards and you lived up to them, but they were personal. They had no relation to any kind of ethics or scruples. . . . you were just as happy with mugs or hoodlums as with honest men. . . . You’re a moral defeatist.

When Lennox leaves Marlowe’s office, Marlowe realizes that he has lost a friend. He feels as empty as he had when Linda Loring left him after their one night of passion, when he said, “To say goodbye is to die a little.”