First
Sentence: It was one of those Tuesday afternoons in summer
when you wonder if the earth has stopped revolving.
PI Phillip Marlow is hired by the lovely and, apparently,
wealthy Claire Cavendish to locate her former lover. Marlow
quickly learns the man was killed in a hit-and-run; news it
seems Mrs. Cavandish already knew. Yet she claims to have
seen him alive in San Francisco. Marlow runs into one unexpected
event after another in his search to find out what is really
going on.
At the very beginning, the author’s voice makes you
smile. Black does try to capture the feel of the Golden Age
authors but it just never quite rings true. There are cracks
in the veneer. Although Black uses terms that are not politically
correct for today, they also weren’t accurate for the
period. There were small details that were off—straight
skirts weren’t called “pencil” skirts in
the 50s.
Some
of the descriptions in the beginning weren’t bad…”That
smile: it was like something she had set a match to a long
time ago and then left to smolder on by itself…”
but they soon disappeared. It was also painfully clear that
this was not written by an American, and certainly not someone
who lived and breathed the area as Chandler had done.
Black does capture a bit of Chandler’s dry, ironic voice…””Someone
like who?” He seemed to wince; it was probably my grammar.”
The plot’s not bad and there were good surprises, good
lines…”The world, when you come down to it, is
a scary place…”, but the further one reads, the
more it turns from gold, to gold gilt, to brass, to lead,
and becomes almost uncomfortable to read.
The Black-Eyed Blond might be a decent read for those
who’ve not read the classics. However, to those who
have, it really doesn’t hold together. Once again, I
find myself believing that when an author dies, should their
character.
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