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The Big Sleep: An Philip Marlowe Mystery (Penguin Fiction)
 
 
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The Big Sleep: An Philip Marlowe Mystery (Penguin Fiction) (Paperback)

by Raymond Chandler (Author), Ian Rankin (Introduction) "It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness..." (more)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Customers buy this book with Selected Tales (Penguin Popular Classics) by Edgar Allan Poe

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Product details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin; New Ed edition (7 Jul 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140108920
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140108927
  • Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 11 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 6,327 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #1 in  Books > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Authors, A-Z > C > Chandler, Raymond
    #6 in  Books > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Mystery > Hard-Boiled
    #7 in  Books > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Authors, A-Z > R > Rankin, Ian > Complete List

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Product Description

Product Description

Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. But with Sternwood’s two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA’s seedy backstreets, Marlowe’s got his work cut out – and that’s before he stumbles over the first corpse …


About the Author

Best-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

14 Reviews
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 (10)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the all-time classic American crime novels, 6 Feb 2001
By A Customer
First of all, I should say that I can't believe no one else has written a review of this wonderful crime novel. I'm happy to rectify this oversight now.

For me, Raymond Chandler's first novel, published in 1939, stands as not only one of the great crime novels of the 20th century, but one of the best genuinely American prose works in all of literature. Only an ignorant snob could argue that this isn't a piece of literature and a work of art as well as a highly entertaining story of detection. Philip Marlowe is Chandler's laconic private eye hero, an urban knight and man of honour operating in a grim world, a tough guy with a hard shell covering a man of culture and learning. Chandler writes both lines of dialogue and first person narrative to die for, combining a poet's use of metaphor with the hard-edged wit of the mean streets of Los Angeles, whose dark underbelly Chandler explores in his novels.

The plot of this mystery is legendary for its labyrinthine structure as Marlowe takes on a case for the wealthy General Sternwood, getting mixed up in murder, sex and a pornography racket.

I couldn't praise this masterpiece enough. Suffice to say that I consider it to be flawless.

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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Old School Crime, 25 May 2004
By A Customer
I read The Big Sleep because I wanted to finally read one of the classics in the crime genre. I couldn't have picked a better book. The plot is interesting, and the style of writing is very descriptive and easy to read. I thought the style (such as referring to some of the women as 'dames' etc.) would be a bit jarring and dated, but instead it turned out to fit perfectly with the character Phillip Marlowe.

That isn't to say the book isn't dated, but that is part of what makes it so enjoyable. The emphasis in many crime novels these days is on forensic evidence and psychological profiling, but the absence of these elements makes for a refreshing change. At first I was yelling "No, you're ruining the trace evidence" (yelling in my head, obviously, as it would have caused a few odd looks if I'd actually yelled loud in the Tube), but after a while you get used to it and just go with the story.

I can recommend this book to anybody who enjoys modern crime novels, but I'm sure others will enjoy it just as much. I only wish it had lasted a bit longer, I finished it within a couple of days even though I had to work in between bits of reading.

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Maybe I missed the point??, 26 Oct 2008
By Janie U (England) - See all my reviews
  
I loved the way that this book was written. The first person narrative made me feel as though I was in the middle of the action and this book is all action, described in immense detail.
The conversations are very snappy, although I began very quickly to think that Marlowe was just too smart for his own good.
About half way through the book the plot lost my interest, I began to not stop bothering about what he was investigating.
From that point onwards I struggled to get to the end of the book but the last couple of chapters were OK when the strands were pulled together to a conclusion.
I clearly wasn't as impressed as most people but will maybe read other books by Raymond Chandler as I did enjoy his style.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Horrible and confused
Terrific voice over in the narrative,and the evocation of LA as a dusty,still villagey place is very good.The murder takes place and your still gripped.Thats it though. Read more
Published 1 month ago by D. Glowacki

5.0 out of 5 stars Great piece of Detective writing
This 1939 novel follows Chandler's hangdog detective, Phillip Marlowe, as he enters a winding maze of sinister characters, beautiful women, and dead bodies that turn up in all the... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Treefingers

4.0 out of 5 stars Finally! An enjoyable focus for study :D
At last, the general rule of boring books being used as a subject of study at A-level and GCSE's and what have you has been (in my opinion) OBLITERATED! Read more
Published 9 months ago by Jennifer S. Dickens

5.0 out of 5 stars I was everything a well dressed private detective ought to be.I was calling on four million dollars
I was everything a well dressed private detective ought to be.I was calling on four million dollars


This story has been made famous by the film which is a... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Peter Wade

5.0 out of 5 stars An Immortal Murder Mystery
The combination of prose that is both sparse and flowing, a dense plot and a tragic yet oddly subtle denoument would be enough to make The Big Sleep one of the greatest, and most... Read more
Published 11 months ago by The Piglit

5.0 out of 5 stars Iconic Roman Noir
Very few characters fill a space in our collective imagination in the way that Marlowe does. From the 1946 Humphrey Bogart to Calvin & Hobbes's character 'Tracer Bullet', and... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Martin Turner

5.0 out of 5 stars Crime writing genius
The first Philip Marlowe book and one of the best. There's only so many different ways one can talk about Chandler being one of the greatest crime writers ever but this book also... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Spring-heeled Jack

5.0 out of 5 stars As Hard-boiled as it gets......
"It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. Read more
Published on 18 Oct 2007 by Bentley

4.0 out of 5 stars Nearly Converted
I'm no fan of mysteries, except perhaps the general mystery surrounding life, and I see crime enough in the every day without feeling the need to return to it for entertainment,... Read more
Published on 18 Jul 2007 by Zinta Aistars

5.0 out of 5 stars Original
It's almost 75 years since the original publication of 'The Big Sleep' and it shows its age all of once, if that. Read more
Published on 25 Feb 2003 by oddisee

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