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Title: Playback by Raymond Chandler, Elliott Gould ISBN: 1-59007-097-6 Publisher: New Millennium Audio Pub. Date: 01 May, 2002 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 2 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.55 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Playback is an engaging read.
Comment: I have read all of Raymond Chandler's novels, and I believe Playback was his last. This story was first intended, I believe as a screenplay, and reading the story, you definitely sense a filmic quality. The novel and tone is quiet, almost as if Philip Marlowe is sleepwalking throughout the mystery. This is not neccessarily a bad thing. The plot has Marlowe shadowing a a wealthy young woman hiding out in a small Southern California beach town who is trying to escape her past. There are the usual sordid characters and sprinkling of murders, but Chandler also introduces a love affair or two.
A lot of the reviews I've read here so far seem unimpressed with this story -- ignore them. PLAYBACK is classic Chandler, and one of his very best.
Rating: 3
Summary: A plot as thin as gravy on the blue plate special.
Comment: Originally published in 1958, just one year before his death, Playback is the last novel completed by Raymond Chandler. As always, Chandler's writing style is first rate. Highly descriptive prose, engaging dialogue, imaginative situations and anecdotes, as well as interesting social commentary are present in abundance. Unfortunately, the plot itself is so very thin and poorly conceived, little can be done to save it.
Most of the narrative takes place not in Los Angeles but in a small resort town near San Diego. Philip Marlowe has been paid to follow a beautiful redhead though he is not told why. Because he thinks she might be in danger, Marlowe identifies himself and offers to help the redhead who is traveling under the name of Betty Mayfield. Before long, an aquaintance of Miss Mayfield turns up dead. We subsequently learn that the body was caused to disappear in a very gimmicky manner. A manner one would be more likely to expect to find in a bad episode of Mannix than in a Raymond Chandler novel. Quite frankly, when I read this particular passage in all its cheesiness, I became embarrassed for the author and his countless fans everywhere.
Playback is worth reading if only to see how much Marlowe and American society had changed since the character's debut in the 1930's. Raymond Chandler is an American original, a legendary writer and pioneer of the hard-boiled detective genre. But Playback falls far short of the high standard he himself had set.
Rating: 4
Summary: Playback but don't read the back cover.
Comment: Playback is the last Chandler's novel featuring the PI Philip Marlowe. The plot is far more simple than in previous Marlowe's cases and more emphasis is put in the atmosphere of the settings (a small and quited coastal village full of rich people).
The book explores some of the social class-conflicts present in other Marlowe's novels although with less bitterness: the policemen are not so brutal, the richmen are not so mean. The girl, though, is as cruel as usual.
The Black Lizard edition is quite good: confortable to read, aesthetically atractive. Just one mistake: the text in the back cover (yes, the one that you read before buying the book) tells you a little bit too much. Marlowe is told to follow a girl and you only know why on chapter 24 (of the 28 of the book). Well, if you read the 12 lines of the back cover you already discovered that before you even bought the book and that spoils half of the mystery (the other half is quite predictable anyway). So the advise is: buy the book, begin reading in the first page and never look at the backcover.
The book is good both for Chandler's fans and just crime novel lovers, but if you hadn't read the previous Marlowe's adventures you wont enjoy it that much. Read the other Marlowe cases first, beginning with The Big Sleep.
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Title: The High Window (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0394758269 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Little Sister (Vintage Crime) by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 039475767X Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Lady in the Lake (Vintage Crime/ Black Lizard) by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0394758250 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Trouble Is My Business (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0394757645 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Long Goodbye (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0394757688 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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