Great holiday read. Clever, intelligent plot, and and a world that easily absorbed me. ( )

"Dead men are heavier than broken hearts."
It's pulp fiction, a hard-boiled detective/noir that set the standard for a genre. What's notable is that in this case, the movie was better than the book. The dialogue is chock full of slang from the 30's, not all of which has aged well. Some lines were so ridiculous that I laughed out loud:
"My God, you big dark handsome brute! I ought to throw a Buik at you!"
As characters go, neither of the Sternwood daughters "has any more moral sense than a cat." They aren't fully developed and their misadventures are never fully explained,and the book leaves some of the murders unsolved, unfortunately. ( )

It's still quite good. Of course it is quite sexist a times, but the plot is very strong and Marlowe a delicious narrator. ( )

A classic crime mystery. Plotting, characters, atmosphere and language were top notch. I know TV and movies have poked at the language Chandler used with Marlowe, but it was so unique and wonderful that you want to join Picard on the Holodeck and experience yourself. This is a must read. ( )

A little hard to follow what was going on given the smart arse dialogue and the off-centre characters, but Chandler does help us recollect where we are with the story in a few places. The story is a sitter for the cinema and so it proved to be. Great to read a story about Los Angeles wherein the weather is so often wet.