Most of us know that Benjamin Black is the mystery nom de plume of Booker Prize-winner John Banville. In his latest whodunit, however, he channels the master of
hardboiled detective stories, Raymond Chandler, by resurrecting his most famous character, Philip Marlowe. Set
in grimy 1950s
Southern California, the
story begins
with a
dame who, like Black/Banville, is more than she seems. Mrs. Claire Cavendish arrives in Marlowe's office with a few
familiar distress
calls—a missing former
beau, a husband with his own secrets—but things take a deliciously twisted turn
when Marlowe discovers that
the missing man, wannabe
Hollywood agent Nico
Peterson, is dead (unless, of course, he's not) which, despite her innocent
act, Mrs.
Cavendish knows full
well. Operating just this side of the law, Marlowe pokes at the underbelly of
the rich until
the rich poke back, and then some. With nods to Chandler's
The
Long Goodbye—and his penchant for
similes: "An empty house has a way of swallowing sounds, like a dry creek
sucking down water"—Black's masterful pastiche is part homage to the king of
noir and part dark-chocolate literary goodie. Gobble it down in one night.
