The first incident, with the secretary, is slightly justified by establishing how Marlowe still thinks of Loren, to appear again at the end, but I could have done without it more happily. It was bad enough in Farewell, My Lovely. There was no point in competing with Spillane. Chandler died the following year Playback is his last completed novel. It was first published in Britain in July 1958 the US edition followed in October that year. Maybe the first is unnecessary at that-it doesn't seem like a sufficient occasion for someone to draw a gun, & what was Marlowe hoping to accomplish, anyway? But now as the violence is toned down, suddenly the sex gets turned up. Playback is a novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler featuring the private detective Philip Marlowe. He toned that down in the novels, The Big Sleep is the only one in which Marlowe actually kills anyone, & there are just two fights in Playback. Dropping the case, but making Betty his charge, Marlowe is. The trouble with the short stories is that (no doubt because the pulps required it) every time the narrator goes through a door, there's bound to be either a corpse or somebody with a gun on the other side. Philip Marlowe again- the archetypal eye- has nothing to go on but a girl to follow- Betty Mayfield, whose quick changes of names and hotels still do not keep her out of reach of a blackmailer, a later murder victim. It's rather short, as if he was never able to work up much interest. Start a free 30-day trial today and get your first audiobook.

I just read Playback for the first time this month, having read & re-read other Chandler novels & short stories for years. Listen to Playback by Raymond Chandler available from Rakuten Kobo.

Playback by raymond chandler