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The ninth 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.

I’m rereading his work and writing reviews. More details about the who, what and why are explained here in part one.

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Review Number: 14 (9 in Chandler series)
Review Date: 21 February 2016

Title: The Little Sister
Author: Raymond Chandler
Country: United States
Publication Date: 1949
Genre: Crime Fiction

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The pebbled glass door panel is lettered in flaked black paint: ‘Philip Marlowe . . . Investigations’. It is a reasonably shabby door at the end of a reasonably shabby corridor in the sort of building that was new about the year the all-tile bathroom became the basis of civilization. The door is locked, but next to it is another door with the same legend which is not locked. Come on in – there’s nobody in here but me and a big bluebottle fly. But not if you’re from Manhattan, Kansas.

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If you were browsing in a bookshop and picked up this novel to read the opening lines, then the text above may well get your attention. It’s a good indication that you’re in for an entertaining ride.

Raymond Chandler’s fifth novel, The Little Sister, is a return to form. While not as famous, it’s still up there with the classics The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely in terms of quality and style.

In a neat reversal from his fourth book, The Lady in the Lake, the plot this time is for private detective, Philip Marlowe, to find a missing man – Orrin Quest.

Quest’s little sister, the prim and proper Orfamay from Manhattan (in Kansas, not the other one), wants Marlowe to find her brother. Marlowe sees through her shtick straight away, but as it’s a quiet week he decides to go hunting anyway. Hell, what’s he got to lose?

Quite a lot in fact. As a tale it gets very gritty and dirty. Lives are lost and no one wins any prizes for ethics or morals. But as Chandler does so well, it’s not merely action and speed. There is time for Marlowe to muse and amuse:

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I smelled Los Angeles before I got to it. It smelled stale and old like a living room that had been closed too long. But the colored lights fooled you. The lights were wonderful. There ought to be a monument to the man who invented neon lights. Fifteen stories high, solid marble. There’s a boy who really made something out of nothing.

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Observant types may have noticed that The Little Sister was published in 1949 – a six-year gap from the last novel. It wasn’t writer’s block at work, but Chandler’s stint as a writer in Hollywood.

This real-life experience is brought to Marlowe’s weird and wonderful world. We’ve got wannabes, stars, producers and all the trappings of Hollywood’s glitz and grime on show. This is what makes the book so compelling. Lurid tales from behind Hollywood’s cameras would fill a million novels – and still have room for more.

Staying with the silver screen, Chandler wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for the brilliant Double Indemnity (1944) and The Blue Dahlia (1946). He was also responsible for The Unseen (1945) – which should remain unseen. (Yeah, I said it.)

From also reading his letters, it’s clear Chandler was a mean son of a bitch at times. He often bit the (Hollywood) hand that fed him. Talking back and talking trash. He once referred to the beautiful actress Veronica Lake (from The Blue Dahlia) as ‘Moronica Lake’. Damn. That’s harsh.

What about the film version of The Little Sister? Well, there was one.

The movie was called Marlowe (1969) and starred the jovial James Garner. It was before Garner’s famous television role in The Rockford Files (1974-80). He was a good actor but was doing the same in the film as he did in the TV show. (By the way, that is Bruce Lee in the picture above. He was also in Marlowe and taught that room a lesson.)

It was a pretty good movie, but was set in the 1960s and came across as too light-hearted. It failed to capture Los Angeles’ dark heart in the late 1940s. Perhaps the subject matter was too unpalatable for 1969. A new film version would work today if it adopted the same style and realism of L.A. Confidential (1997) or Shutter Island (2010).

The influence of Hollywood casts a long shadow over the book and I think Chandler wrote The Little Sister in an uppity state of mind. But sometimes foul moods create fine things.

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Her voice faded off into sort of a sad whisper, like a mortician asking for a down payment.

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