“Marlowe's about to give up on a completely routine case when he finds himself in the wrong place at the right time to get caught up in a murder that leads to a ring of jewel thieves, another murder, a fortune-teller, a couple more murders, and more corruption than your average graveyard.”
I am not going to go long on this; my main motivation in reading a Philip Marlowe novel was trying to get a feeling for some noir vibes. I kinda regretted it. Chandler was very good at what he did, but the natural racism for an LA crime novel that was published in 1940.
Chandler writes great characters, the hard-boiled detective is the center, but in his orbit are plenty of wild characters the clients, the folks at the dive bars, the vintage LA underbelly. Many are ugly but it is the best part of reading a Chandler book. That and the sarcasm that is part of the detective trope.
Is it better than The Big Sleep? Not sure, both are quotable, I don’t detect much growth between the two. One thing I learned is that Chandler was living here in San Diego (La Jolla) when he died and is buried here.
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