This is probably the oddest and most hallucinogenic of Marlowe's mysteries. At times it felt like I was reading a Tintin adventure. Although it had the usual magnificent Chandler prose and wonderful deadpan dialogue, the racism that kept cropping up left a nasty taste.

It also contains this, which I think synthesises the entire noir genre with astonishing elegance:

After a while I felt a little better, but very little. I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.

This was probably my favourite line, though: ‘The eighty-five cent dinner tasted like a discarded mailbag.’

I greatly appreciated the contrasts drawn between luxurious Beverly Hills palaces and scummy tenements, as well as between Basin City’s shiny exterior and all the crime lurking below. In this episode, Marlowe seems to be more laconic than ever and everyone seems to be flirting with him. A smart young lady follows him about, tries to do his job for him, and gets annoyed when he doesn’t take the hint. A Basin City cop keeps calling him ‘baby’. A dangerous blonde dame plies him with booze then sits in his lap. And a guy named Red listens to his woes and holds his hand. But as ever, he ends the novel on his own, out of pocket and likely in search of a drink. Good old Marlowe. ( )

Delicious! ( )

Excellent writing but the 1940s racism is quite jarring! ( )

The story is good but the racism is hard to get through ( )

March 2018 reread: 4.5* this time around (rather than the 5* I gave it before)

The story makes a lot more sense in the book than the 1945 Dick Powell film adaptation (called "Murder, My Sweet") (the surprise of which I think is the reason I rated it higher last time). ( )