The second part in a series of eleven book reviews.
From the 1930s to the 1950s Raymond Chandler penned a stylish collection of short stories and novels within the crime fiction genre.
Over the coming months I’m rereading his work and writing reviews. More details about the who, what and why are explained here in part one.
Review Number: 7 (2 in Chandler series)
Review Date: 14 September 2015
Title: Trouble is My Business
Author: Raymond Chandler
Country: United States
Publication Date: 1950 (collected stories / 1936 to 1939)
Genre: Crime Fiction
This collection first published by Penguin Books in 1950 consists of five short stories: Trouble is My Business, Red Wind, I’ll Be Waiting, Goldfish and Guns at Cyrano’s.
Trouble is My Business
(Originally published in Dime Detective, August 1939.)
“I need a man good-looking enough to pick up a dame who has a sense of class, but he’s got to be tough enough to swap punches with a power shovel. I need a guy who can act like a bar lizard and backchat like Fred Allen, only better, and get hit on the head with a beer truck and think some cutie in the leg-line topped him with a breadstick.”
“It’s a cinch,” I said. “You need the New York Yankees, Robert Donat, and the Yacht Club Boys.”
The title and story may conjure up clichés or something corny, but let’s not forget Chandler was aiming for a highly-stylised form of crime fiction. He also had to get his stuff published in the pulp magazines of the time. He had to sell stories to survive.
The action and dialogue are crisp. Sure, nobody talks with the brilliant realism that Elmore Leonard somehow managed later on. But this was never Chandler’s target. Style and substance are what it’s all about.
This is a good short story. Coming in at 60 pages it’s longer than normal, but holds up well.
The private detective – John Dalmas – is given a case to ‘smear a girl’. She’s described as a ‘redheaded number with bedroom eyes’. Remember, this was written in 1939 – not last year.
It’s not a classy or cool job to take on, but Dalmas needs the money. His task is to dig up some dirt on the lady’s life history to stop her hooking up with a rich guy’s son.
Dalmas does utter the line ‘trouble is my business’ a few times. It sounds like something from a bad gangster movie, but it’s an accurate description of his job.
Most of the tale is about murder and mayhem. But after rereading it, I’d forgotten how witty it can be in the right places:
The Arbogast I wanted was John D. Arbogast and he had an office on Sunset near Ivar. I called him up from a phone booth. The voice that answered was fat. It wheezed softly, like the voice of a man who had just won a pie-eating contest.
“Mr. John D. Arbogast?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Philip Marlowe, a private detective working on a case you did some experting on. Party named Jeeter.”
“Yeah?”
“Can I come up and talk to you about it – after I eat lunch?”
“Yeah.” He hung up. I decided he was not a talkative man.
Red Wind
(Originally published in Dime Detective, January 1938.)
This one has a great opening paragraph. Love the way it sets the mood:
There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.
Dalmas again and enjoying a quiet drink in a bar, when a chance encounter blows in a whole world of trouble. Someone gets killed and the murderer gets away. Naturally, Dalmas has to get involved:
The door swung shut. I started to rush it – from long practice in doing the wrong thing. In this case it didn’t matter. The car outside let out a roar and when I got onto the sidewalk it was flicking a red smear of taillight around the nearby corner. I got its license number the way I got my first million.
Weather plays a part in this tale. The hot wind seems to put everyone on edge and you get to feel the heat and tension.
Like Pearls are a Nuisance, this tale has gems in the picture again. It seems not only are they a problem, they get around. That said, this is a fine story. Chandler’s on fire. Like the ‘Red Wind’.
I’ll Be Waiting
(Originally published in The Saturday Evening Post, October 1939.)
At one o’clock in the morning, Carl, the night porter, turned down the last of three table lamps in the main lobby of the Windermere Hotel. The blue carpet darkened a shade or two and the walls drew back into remoteness. The chairs filled with shadowy loungers. In the corners were memories like cobwebs.
I like the story’s name. It can hint at menace or patience. There’s a sense of ambiguity here.
This is also a very brief piece. Just 18 pages long.
The scene is the Windermere Hotel. As with The King in Yellow, Chandler brings the world of late nights and soulless rooms to life. His style is spacious and cool. The reader can let their imagination fill in the gaps.
Tony Reseck, house detective, is our focal point. He gets into a charming conversation with a guest – a singer called Eve Cressy, who Reseck describes as ‘a name waiting for lights to be in’.
But as Chandler often does, and does so well, he captures the sadness in people’s lives. The memories. The what-might-have-beens:
“Eve Cressy,” she said. “It was in lights once. At a bum night club. A dive. They raided it and the lights went out.”
As you’ve probably worked out Reseck likes her. He cares about her. But there’s danger on the way.
Goldfish
(Originally published in Black Mask, June 1936.)
Another great opening:
I wasn’t doing any work that day, just catching up on my foot-dangling. A warm gusty breeze was blowing in at the office window and the soot from the Mansion House Hotel oil burners across the alley was rolling across the glass top of my desk in tiny particles, like pollen drifting over a vacant lot.
I was just thinking about going to lunch when Kathy Home came in.
She was a tall, seedy, sad-eyed blonde who had once been a policewoman and had lost her job when she married a cheap little check bouncer named Johnny Home, to reform him. She hadn’t reformed him, but she was waiting for him to come out so she could try again.
Bear with me here, but the story’s focus is on pearls again. That’s three times in two books, but Chandler clearly wanted to keep it simple and let the plot get a move on.
The detective’s name is Ted Carmady. The banter between him and Home is good. An enjoyable story but not his best.
Guns at Cyrano’s
(Originally published in Black Mask, January 1936.)
No time to waste. Chandler lets the action begin immediately.
A seemingly random attack in a hotel. But Ted Malvern is on hand to help the female victim, Jean Adrian, and he’s determined to find out more. And there certainly is more.
This tale is a bit unusual as Malvern has money and isn’t a detective. Well, he was one.
There are also descriptions of a boxing match and a dance show – not the typical places Chandler wrote about. It’s an interesting story – some may enjoy the off-kilter feel, while others may pine for the cool comfort of detectives in cheap hotels. Some may even want another story about pearls.
This is a bit like Goldfish – good but not outstanding.
They had that effect the eyes of the new dead have of almost, but not quite, looking at you.
