15th out of 308 books
—
201 voters
The High Window (Philip Marlowe #3)
A wealthy Pasadena widow with a mean streak, a missing daughter-in-law with a past, and a gold coin worth a small fortune—the elements don't quite add up until Marlowe discovers evidence of murder, rape, blackmail, and the worst kind of human exploitation.
"Raymond Chandler is a star of the first magnitude."-- Erle Stanley Gardner
"Raymond Chandler has given us a detective w...more
"Raymond Chandler is a star of the first magnitude."-- Erle Stanley Gardner
"Raymond Chandler has given us a detective w...more
Paperback, 265 pages
Published
July 12th 1988
by Vintage
(first published 1942)
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Jan 25, 2012
Dan Schwent
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3 of 5 stars
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review of another edition
Shelves:
crime-and-mystery,
2012
Philip Marlowe is hired to find the Brasher doubloon, a valuable gold coin stolen from its owner. Marlowe trails the owner's daughter in law, thinking she stole the coin. Marlowe's path leads him into a web of murder and blackmail. Will Marlowe be able to find who stole the doubloon without winding up on the pile of corpses left in its wake?
As I continuously mention, noir fiction of this type agrees with me like a bottle of Mad Dog does a homeless man. The High Window, Raymond Chandler's third P...more
As I continuously mention, noir fiction of this type agrees with me like a bottle of Mad Dog does a homeless man. The High Window, Raymond Chandler's third P...more
Chandler's a real pro. This feels like it tripped off the pen, like his kick from writing it is no less than ours from reading it. His great sense of timing isn't going to work out of context, so you are going to have to take my word for it.
Still...just this, in the middle of describing a character's face.
I've read this sentence a hundred times now. Savoured it. Fantastic. The guy is sharp as when it comes to building pictures of people, of settings,...more
Still...just this, in the middle of describing a character's face.
He had a long nose that would be into things.
I've read this sentence a hundred times now. Savoured it. Fantastic. The guy is sharp as when it comes to building pictures of people, of settings,...more
One thing I can’t stand about Goodreads reviews is the compulsion that so many reviewers have of giving a detailed summary of the plot. Is there anything more dull than reading a poorly written plot summary of a book you’ve already read or want to read? So, I’m not going to discuss the plot here, other than to point out that the plot is wholly irrelevant (which is stating the obvious, to Chandler-afficiandos). Chandler’s plots are always convoluted MacGuffins used as a backdrop for Marlowe to ex...more
I love Raymond Chandler. And Marlowe, the joke cracking private eye who's tough on the outside and golden on the inside and who would be cliched except he's the original everyone else copied...it's vintage noir, hard-boiled action, the world without frills, a trail of murders and blackmail and robbery. It's flawed the way America's underbelly is flawed but it's always clear where Marlowe's sympathies lie...with the poor, the lost, the wicked, the desperate doing all they can to get out of povert...more
now THIS is an example of a writer whose prose has some bite to it!
The room beyond was large and square and sunken and cool and had the restful atmosphere of a funeral chapel and something of the same smell. Tapestry on the blank roughened stucco walls, iron grilles imitating balconies outside high side windows, heavy carved chairs with plush seats and tapestry backs and tarnished gilt tassels hanging down their sides. At the back a stained-glass window about the size of a tennis court. Curtaine...more
The room beyond was large and square and sunken and cool and had the restful atmosphere of a funeral chapel and something of the same smell. Tapestry on the blank roughened stucco walls, iron grilles imitating balconies outside high side windows, heavy carved chairs with plush seats and tapestry backs and tarnished gilt tassels hanging down their sides. At the back a stained-glass window about the size of a tennis court. Curtaine...more
Raymond Chandler is just flat-out fun to read, as I discovered in this "The High Window," the first book of his I've read. In Philip Marlowe he's created the quintessential lovable jerk - not an "anti-hero" by an stretch, but a man who while acting as the protagonist ends up antagonizing everyone he comes across, and it's definitely a big part of his appeal to me. My ultimate impression of "The High Window" is that it was an excellent vessel for Marlowe to bemoan his circumstance with an endless...more
Marlowe goes to Pasadena to meet a client about a job. First he has to get past the secretary. Miss Davis is a rather meek soul, who asks for his references, and once they check out, she takes him to see the client—Mrs. Elizabeth Murdock. Mrs. Murdock is a large, hard woman with an unpleasant attitude, one that isn’t above haggling Marlowe about what his expenses consist of. The situation is this—something of value has been stolen from her, and she suspects the culprit to be her daughter-in-law...more
I'm not certain anybody does the typical hard-boiled private eye better than Raymond Chandler. Marlowe is clever, witty, snippy, and persistent. He continues to stumble over dead bodies, damsels in distress, and tough criminal types. He inserts his nose firmly into a high society family's business and refuse to butt out. This time around there is some funny business with a rare coin and Marlowe trods along until he sees it resolved.
I think that there are better mysteries out there, but I believ...more
I think that there are better mysteries out there, but I believ...more
Having read a lot of Raymond Chandler through the years and now, finally going back and re-reading everything with a more widened perspective on the genre, The High Window easily stands out as his finest work.
The High Window, unlike a lot of genre Private Detective stories, which so many other authors have spent lifetimes struggling to copy and coming up short, keeps you guessing until the very end. Some authors give you a nibble about half way through a story and it falls apart in your lap and...more
I have a tendency to forget parts of a Chandler plot, not because they are rather formulaic, even though Chandler was the creator of the formula, but because I enjoy reading him for his witticisms and the way he puts words together. For example:
P45 “A long-limbed languorous type of showgirl blond lay at her ease in one of the chairs, with her feet raised on a padded rest and a tall misted glass at her elbow, near a silver ice bucket and a Scotch bottle. She looked at us lazily as we came over th...more
Had an overwhelming craving for a dose of Chandler's sordid urban poetry and opted for this, one of his novels that I've read only once. Promptly proceeded to devour it within the course of 36 hours. Usually not considered one of the highlights of Chandler's compact oeuvre, about halfway through it struck me how difficult it is to distinguish between "great" Chandler and the "merely good," as this is really terrific stuff.
But after finishing it became clear again why this isn't one of Chandler's...more
But after finishing it became clear again why this isn't one of Chandler's...more
Philip Marlowe, LA and Chandler’s #1 PI, gets a call from the wealthy widow Mrs. Murdoch. It seems she wants him to go find her trashy daughter-in-law and retrieve the gold Brasher Doubloon her husband left for her in his will (never to be sold).
Marlowe finds there is more to the story than meets the eye. Mrs. Murdoch will not let Marlowe interview her son and is not to go to the police. But the police come to Marlowe after he discovers a dead body - or two - or three.
Also involved in this hun...more
Marlowe finds there is more to the story than meets the eye. Mrs. Murdoch will not let Marlowe interview her son and is not to go to the police. But the police come to Marlowe after he discovers a dead body - or two - or three.
Also involved in this hun...more
Typical Chandler: Philip Marlowe in seedy plot but great writing!
We're catching up on Chandler's private-eye Philip Marlowe novels published in the 1940's, having read "Poodle Springs" (his last work, actually finished by Robert Parker) and "The Big Sleep", his first and perhaps most well-known entry in the set, possibly due to the movie with Humphrey Bogart. The book is classic Chandler: beautifully descriptive prose almost wasted on the seedy characters that populate the storyline. The plot ki...more
We're catching up on Chandler's private-eye Philip Marlowe novels published in the 1940's, having read "Poodle Springs" (his last work, actually finished by Robert Parker) and "The Big Sleep", his first and perhaps most well-known entry in the set, possibly due to the movie with Humphrey Bogart. The book is classic Chandler: beautifully descriptive prose almost wasted on the seedy characters that populate the storyline. The plot ki...more
It has been many years since I read any of Raymond Chandler's Marlowe novels, but seeing The Brasher Doubloon (1947) over the weekend made me want to re-read the novel on which it was based. It was good to see Marlowe again, working for another high suspect and dysfunctional rich family (as in The Big Sleep). There is a family secretary named Merle Davis, who is afraid of being touched and who believes that, years before, she had murdered her employer's husband.
There are also the usual collecti...more
There are also the usual collecti...more
The bar entrance was to the left. It was dusky and quiet and a bartender moved mothlike against the faint glitter of piled glassware. A tall handsome blond in a dress that looked like seawater sifted over with gold dust came out of the ladies room, touching up her lips and turned toward the arch, humming.
The sound of rhumba music came through the archway and she nodded her gold head in time to it, smiling. A short fat man with a red face and glittering eyes waited for her with a white wrap over...more
The sound of rhumba music came through the archway and she nodded her gold head in time to it, smiling. A short fat man with a red face and glittering eyes waited for her with a white wrap over...more
Este foi meu primeiro livro de Raymond Chandler e seu detetive Philip Marlowe. Em A Janela para a Morte (The High Window), Philip Marlowe é chamado por uma mulher rica para investigar o sumiço de uma moeda antiga e valiosa de sua coleção. Aquilo que começa como uma investigação amena vai se deteriorando ao curso da trama com uma sucessão de cadáveres que traz à tona uma série de chantagens, interesses espúrios e possíveis motivações díspares pelos personagens.
Parece-me que o que difere a nova es...more
Parece-me que o que difere a nova es...more
I was talking with a friend about detective noir mysteries of the 40's and how then it was a genre that was taking a chance, dealing with dark/tough subject matter and social issues, and that's why I find it appealing. It was somewhat like the beat generation writers were to the 60's, or what dope fiend memoirs are today. She agreed and said it was a venue that allowed the reader into a dark subculture that was intriguing, dangerous, and for the most part unattainable – and then she went one fur...more
Chandler believed, first, that he "chose" to be a writer as some people "choose" to be a waiter or a janitor, second, that he "became" a writer by studying "Black Mask" and the other pulps and simply imitating them (more on that below), and third, that the results were not make-work as they should have been, but serious literature, on a par with Hammett if not one better.
Chandler spent a boozy couple of years tearing the stories in the pulps (which he always maintained a healthy disdain for in...more
Chandler spent a boozy couple of years tearing the stories in the pulps (which he always maintained a healthy disdain for in...more
Marlowe always seems to get the good ones, Chandler of course hints at a whole life and strings of cases undocumented in novel or stories, but it's no wonder Marlowe has the kind of attitude he has. A fairly straight-forward case - track down an estranged daughter-in-law for an ill-tempered old woman and retrieve a coin - turns into a serpentine mess with Marlowe often only a half-step ahead of authorities demanding answers. The writing is top-notch and, though Chandler has several ringers, the...more
A lot of people have beliefs in what a detective novel "should" be and since Chandler novels are so archetypical, having set the tone for what feels like ninety percent of everything that followed, there's probably a sense that a Marlowe story should contain all that is good and necessary in a detective story. Dames and danger and murder and moral ambiguity and crime and maybe even a rousing musical number. Oh wait, that's Dennis Potter.
Yet sometimes in trying to define what a detective story is...more
Yet sometimes in trying to define what a detective story is...more
Chandler's books are well worth reading even if you aren't into mystery novels. His novels are much more than that. They are, in many ways, an indictment of humanity.
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"Bunker Hill is old town, lost town, shabby town, crook town. Once, very long ago, it was the choice residential district of the city, and there are still standing a few of the jigsaw Gothic mansions with wide porches and walls covered with round-end shingles and full corner bay windows with spindle turrets. They are all ro...more
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"Bunker Hill is old town, lost town, shabby town, crook town. Once, very long ago, it was the choice residential district of the city, and there are still standing a few of the jigsaw Gothic mansions with wide porches and walls covered with round-end shingles and full corner bay windows with spindle turrets. They are all ro...more
The quintessential urban private eye!...Philip Marlowe!
Raymond Chandler is a writer's writer... His prose sparkles, his narrative intrigues, and he's truly the master of hard boiled crime noir!
This was my first peek into the landscape of my native Los Angeles at a time (before I was born) when the air was clear and the roads were lined with a lushness long laid to rest.
Hollywood was smoldering with sexy fresh talent and glamour and deceit were de rigueur.
These were the novels that I saw at my G...more
Raymond Chandler is a writer's writer... His prose sparkles, his narrative intrigues, and he's truly the master of hard boiled crime noir!
This was my first peek into the landscape of my native Los Angeles at a time (before I was born) when the air was clear and the roads were lined with a lushness long laid to rest.
Hollywood was smoldering with sexy fresh talent and glamour and deceit were de rigueur.
These were the novels that I saw at my G...more
Had to laugh when I found reviews saying nobody ever reads Chandler for his plot. It's probably true, at least once you know what you're getting into. There are parts of the books where I have no idea what's going on but I'm still hanging on because the way he writes is so amazing. I think I say this in every review of his books, though. This one had some awesome phrases in it -- the description of Marlowe as a "shop-soiled Galahad" particularly struck me, and "women who should be young but have...more
I can't remember when I first read a book by Raymond Chandler. Needless to say, it was a long time ago...
I was quite enamored by hard boiled detective novels and Chandler is a godfather/God of the genre. I know that The High Window was not one of the Chandler novels I read years ago and it certainly isn't one of his famous novels, although this one was made into a film just as Farewell My Lovely and The Big Sleep were. The High Window plot initiates when a widow hires Los Angeles private detecti...more
I was quite enamored by hard boiled detective novels and Chandler is a godfather/God of the genre. I know that The High Window was not one of the Chandler novels I read years ago and it certainly isn't one of his famous novels, although this one was made into a film just as Farewell My Lovely and The Big Sleep were. The High Window plot initiates when a widow hires Los Angeles private detecti...more
I was once in a bookshop and heard a customer asking an assistant about Iris Murdoch. The reply she got was "Iris Murdoch's books were of a time". I wasn't sure what she meant at the time but having just read The High Window I think I now know. This book is clearly of its time. I do not think you would come across Chandler's style of writing in a book by a contemporary author. Descriptive yes, but in a very matter of fact and sequential manner. Maybe that fits his genre.
Philip Marlowe is the ori...more
Philip Marlowe is the ori...more
I was so thrilled to find an English book in a Korean book store that I had to get it. I throughly enjoyed reading this Chandler story. It follows Philip Marlowe getting hired by an old widow to get back a gold coin worth a fair amount of money. Suspected to be stolen by the hated daughter-in-law. As usual, nothing or no one is up-front. What I liked about this book, is that there are many more loose ends that are not tied up at the end of the story as there were at the beginning. This book has...more
Of the Raymond Chandler books I have read so far (the others being The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely), I enjoyed this one the most. Part of this is I took the time to reread the beginning after I realized I had missed or forgotten some information. I think I'm getting better at reading mysteries, and trying to keep up with Marlowe's reasoning on the case. This one had some superb writing, as well as including the term "antimacassar."
I also recently watched "The Big Lebowski" and seeing how t...more
I also recently watched "The Big Lebowski" and seeing how t...more
There are many good reviews here on goodreads so I won't go into great detail. This is my first Chandler novel. As others have said, Chandler has a great writing style, however the plot can get fuzzy at times and I had to go back and re-read parts to understand what was going on. To me this detracted a bit from the story.
Also, I really found it hard to root for any of the characters in this book, and that took away a bit from the end for me. Marlowe is a great character, and Chandler makes you f...more
Also, I really found it hard to root for any of the characters in this book, and that took away a bit from the end for me. Marlowe is a great character, and Chandler makes you f...more
Not quite as awesome as Farewell, My Lovely, "The High Window" is still a very good book, a taut mystery, with the unflappable Marlowe up to his usual sleuthing.
Readers just starting out with Chandler (as I was, just last week!), should consider getting The Big Sleep; Farewell, My Lovely; The High Window. It's a nice hardcover collecting Chandler's first three novels, and it can be ordered online for relatively not much.
Next Philip Marlowe mystery: The Lady in the Lake.
Readers just starting out with Chandler (as I was, just last week!), should consider getting The Big Sleep; Farewell, My Lovely; The High Window. It's a nice hardcover collecting Chandler's first three novels, and it can be ordered online for relatively not much.
Next Philip Marlowe mystery: The Lady in the Lake.
"She had eyes like strange sins."
Seriously...you just have to love the writing style of Raymond Chandler. So often when I'm reading one of his novels I have to stop and re-read a sentence because of its imagery and the simple words he uses to create that imagery. I wholeheartedly agree with those people who consider him a master writer. The High Window is no exception.
Though I may not rave about this novel as much as I might rave about other Philip Marlowe books, this one, I think, was well-cra...more
Seriously...you just have to love the writing style of Raymond Chandler. So often when I'm reading one of his novels I have to stop and re-read a sentence because of its imagery and the simple words he uses to create that imagery. I wholeheartedly agree with those people who consider him a master writer. The High Window is no exception.
Though I may not rave about this novel as much as I might rave about other Philip Marlowe books, this one, I think, was well-cra...more
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Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.
In 1932, at age forty-four, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In...more
More about Raymond Chandler...
In 1932, at age forty-four, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In...more
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Jan 25, 2012 09:54am
Jan 25, 2012 10:00am