What to Read Next: Detectives to Remember

Issue #337, featuring Raymond Chandler and Louise Penny

Jacques-Louis David, Death of Marat (1793)

Happy Friday, readers!

I recently wrapped up the 18th book in Louise Penny’s series of murder mysteries set in rural Canada. The next title comes out in late October, but it felt momentous to have finished all the available books. Below, I recap the latest Gamache mystery and the experience of reading the whole series.

On that theme of memorable detectives, I’m also featuring Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (1939), which is considered one of the defining books of the genre.

The Anderberg family is traveling next week, so I’m skipping the usual Tuesday discussion and you’ll see me again in your inbox next Friday.

To the books!

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The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

I read Raymond Chandler’s all-time classic detective novel back in January and have been thinking about it on and off ever since.

On one hand, I completely understand the appeal of Chandler’s whip-smart creation of Philip Marlowe. The story, as any good murder mystery has to be, is full of intrigue, relational drama, and unexpected turns.

On the other hand, I didn’t get through its 230 pages as breezily as I expected. And even though I knew Marlowe would be of that hard-edged noir breed of detective, I just didn’t like him much and didn’t want to spend more time with him.

Here is where I’d normally tell you about the plot itself, but I’ll let you read up on that if you’re interested. When it comes to classics, I usually try to go into them with as little knowledge as possible and it always works out well.

Just like the book itself, my feelings about The Big Sleep are layered. Parts of it have aged well; plenty of parts haven’t. The plot is tight (only 230 pages in a world of bloated 400-page mysteries), which I generally love, but the language is almost too sparse to get the whole picture. It’s often described as a dark portrait of Los Angeles, but I didn’t feel like I actually got to know the city very well.

Ultimately, I wanted just a bit more in the way of setting that LA scene and I wanted more complexity from Marlowe than just the cynical hard-ass. (I know that’s kind of the point of Marlowe’s character, but still.)

All that critique out of the way, today’s fictional detective wouldn’t exist without Raymond Chandler and Philip Marlowe. The book deserves all the credit it gets for that fact alone. I get the love for The Big Sleep, and I’m likely in the minority here, but it wasn’t really my jam.

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A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you’re aware of my affinity for Louise Penny and her 18-books-and-counting Inspector Gamache series. I haven’t written about all of them, as that would get repetitive for ya, but I had to write a few words as I finished the final (available) book.

Overall, the series has gotten much stronger as it’s progressed. The stories have gotten more believable (early books featured some whacky deaths), the characters and relationships have grown, and the psychological tension has ratcheted way up.

The Madness of Crowds, book 17, isn’t among my favorites, but books 15, 16, and 18 in the series have been fantastic.

A World of Curiosities (2022) features my favorite Penny trademarks, including a focus on art, a peek into Gamache and Beauvoir’s backstory, a bit of criminal lunacy, and all the earnestness I’ve come to know and love.

I was particularly intrigued by the artwork featured in this one: 1663’s The Paston Treasure. It offers a bit of a mysterious grab-bag of objects, which Penny does fictional wonders with in the story. She creates both a logic puzzle and a jaw-dropping murder mystery, along with a backstory that fits neatly into all of it. Just marvelous.

And with that I’ve finished all 18 books, in order, in the last two years. The Grey Wolf publishes in late October, which means I’m entering my longest stretch of Penny-less reading in recent memory. It’s a bit of a strange feeling — like there will be a Gamache-shaped hole in my reading life for a bit — but the entire journey has been incredibly satisfying. The characters have become friends and even though I’m saying goodbye to them for a little bit, I’m glad it’s not forever.

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Thanks so much for your time and attention. I deeply appreciate it.

-Jeremy