red_dog's review
4.0
It's interesting with classic fiction when you don't think that it will actually be any good - perhaps it's a product of its own time, perhaps its reputation has been so burnished in the long telling that there will inevitably be a sense of disappointment by the time you finally get around to reading it - that it's always a nice surprise when you're wrong, and this certainly the case with The Big Sleep. Philip Marlowe springs so fully formed from the pages that you immediately get into the half strange, half familiar world of the 1930s L.A. underworld. Yes, Marlowe's insouciance can sometimes make him seem untouchable, even when being cudgelled over the head, but when the writing is as good as this, you can forgive him:
"I knelt down and squinted along the nap of the rug to the front door. I thought I could see two parallel grooves pointing that way, as though heels had dragged. Whoever had done it had meant business. Dead men are heavier than broken hearts."
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