The High Window

The third Philip Marlowe book, The High Window is still great Chandler, but it is perhaps a peg below the first two. It suffered from less excellent quotable prose and one liners, although it still has a few great ones: “From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet she looked something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.”

Marlowe is hired to find the Brasher Doubloon, an expensive gold coin gone missing from a collection owned by an old widow from a dysfunctional rich family. A alcoholic old battleaxe of a widow who treats her mousy secretary badly, and her overprotected son Leslie.

An on to a cocktail of threats and blackmail, murders, tall blondes, tough homicide cops and a dental technician. A complex plot, lots of characters, and “Philip Marlowe -the shop-soiled Galahad” sorting things out in the end.