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The Long Good-Bye

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The Long Good-Bye

By: Raymond Chandler
Narrated by: Scott Brick
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness. It all depends on where you sit and what your own private score is. I didn't have one. I didn't care.

Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to his only friend in the world: private investigator Philip Marlowe. He is willing to help a man down on his luck, but later Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty. Marlowe is drawn into a sordid crowd of adulterers and alcoholics in LA's Idle Valley, where the rich are suffering one big suntanned hangover. Marlowe is sure Lennox didn't kill his wife, but how many more stiffs will turn up before he gets to the truth?

©1988 Raymond Chandler (P)2020 Penguin Audio Classics Crime Fiction Detective Modern Detectives Mystery Private Investigators Traditional Detectives Fiction Crime Marriage

Critic Reviews

"Chandler gave birth to a different kind of detective." (The Times)

"Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence." (Daily Telegraph)

"One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain." (Sunday Times)
All stars
Most relevant  
I nearly didn’t. It this because of the criticism of the musical stings between chapters. Yes, they’re stupid and add nothing, but they last a few seconds each in a brilliant 13-hour performance by Scott Brick.

Don’t let the music put you off

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I'd never read or listened to anything by Chandler before so this was a great introduction to his writing and the "noir" style. So many great lines that capture the protagonist's trademark melancholy and cynicism - e.g. "I went to a late movie after a while. It meant nothing. I hardly saw what went on. It was just noise and big faces. When I got home again I set out a very dull Ruy Lopez and that didn't mean anything either. So I went to bed. But not to sleep. At three a.m. I was walking the floor and listening to Khachaturyan working in a tractor factory. He called it a violin concerto. I called it a loose fan belt and the hell with it."
Scott Brick reads the book just the way it should be read. Only negative is the plot, which is hard to follow at times and doesn't make a lot of sense (to me, anyway).

Vintage Chandler

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