John Banville's convincing imitation of Raymond Chandler's literary detective brings to mind an older Humphrey Bogart
Illustration: Clifford Harper/Agraphia.co.uk
The 23rd novel by the Irish writer John Banville feels like a literary equivalent of Winston Churchill's description of Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". The Black-Eyed Blonde represents a literary brand-name wrapped in a pseudonym inside a Man Booker prize winner. Although this is Banville's attempt at a novel in the style of the Philip Marlowe series by Raymond Chandler, he has chosen to publish it under the name of Benjamin Black, the identity he has adopted for a series of crime novels (including Christine Falls and Holy Orders) featuring Quirke, an Irish pathologist in the 1950s.
Black-Banville remains in the same decade for this Marlowe makeover, which finds the private eye living in the rented residence on Yucca Avenue in Los Angeles that he occupied in the final Chandler books. The Long Good‑bye and Playback were set in the early 50s, and charted Marlowe's attraction to and eventual marriage proposal from the heiress Linda Loring. As Black-Banville's Marlowe expresses the hope of one day marrying Loring, The Black-Eyed Blonde seems to sit between the last two completed Chandlers and Poodle Springs, the final, unfinished Marlowe novel, which Robert B Parker finished in a previous authorised continuation, commissioned by the Chandler estate to mark the author's centenary.
The plot, though new, follows the master's hand. On a listless LA day, a beautiful young woman turns up in the PI's office. She is Mrs Clare Cavendish, heiress to a perfume fortune built by an Irish immigrant family, the Langrishes. For tantalisingly unclear reasons, Mrs C has hired Marlowe to find a former lover, Nico Peterson, who has disappeared. The private eye soon learns that Peterson has been killed and cremated, although this information becomes increasingly questionable as the investigator follows the trail deeper into the scent company
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Macmillan - NZ$37.99
Black-Banville remains in the same decade for this Marlowe makeover, which finds the private eye living in the rented residence on Yucca Avenue in Los Angeles that he occupied in the final Chandler books. The Long Good‑bye and Playback were set in the early 50s, and charted Marlowe's attraction to and eventual marriage proposal from the heiress Linda Loring. As Black-Banville's Marlowe expresses the hope of one day marrying Loring, The Black-Eyed Blonde seems to sit between the last two completed Chandlers and Poodle Springs, the final, unfinished Marlowe novel, which Robert B Parker finished in a previous authorised continuation, commissioned by the Chandler estate to mark the author's centenary.The plot, though new, follows the master's hand. On a listless LA day, a beautiful young woman turns up in the PI's office. She is Mrs Clare Cavendish, heiress to a perfume fortune built by an Irish immigrant family, the Langrishes. For tantalisingly unclear reasons, Mrs C has hired Marlowe to find a former lover, Nico Peterson, who has disappeared. The private eye soon learns that Peterson has been killed and cremated, although this information becomes increasingly questionable as the investigator follows the trail deeper into the scent company
More
Macmillan - NZ$37.99
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