Lawrence Osborne brings one of literature’s most enduring detectives back to life—as Private Investigator Philip Marlowe returns for one last adventure. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND NPR • NOMINATED FOR THE EDGAR AND SHAMUS AWARDSThe year is 1988. The place, Baja California. And Philip Marlowe—now in his seventy-second year—is living out his … seventy-second year—is living out his retirement in the terrace bar of the La Fonda hotel. Sipping margaritas, playing cards, his silver-tipped cane at the ready. When in saunter two men dressed like undertakers, with a case that has his name written all over it.
For Marlowe, this is his last roll of the dice, his swan song. His mission is to investigate the death of Donald Zinn—supposedly drowned off his yacht, and leaving behind a much younger and now very rich wife. But is Zinn actually alive? Are the pair living off the spoils?
Set between the border and badlands of Mexico and California, Lawrence Osborne’s resurrection of the iconic Marlowe is an unforgettable addition to the Raymond Chandler canon.
Praise for Only to Sleep
“A new case for Philip Marlowe and—have a smell from the barrel, all you gunsels and able grables —it crackles.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)
“Brilliant. Osborne and Chandler are a perfect match.”—William Boyd, author of Any Human Heart
“A Marlowe we at once know, but have never met before. As much a meditation on aging and memory as it is a crime thriller.”—Los Angeles Times
“It’s the kind of book where, when you read it, it turns the world to black and white for a half-hour afterward. It leaves you with the taste of rum and blood in your mouth. It hangs with you like a scar.”—NPR
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Taking on the job of writing Raymond Chandler characters in a more or less contemporary setting is one I would never have had the guts to accept, but Osborne did and he acquits himself beautiful. This is an engaging novel that becomes nothing less than a meditation on aging as a now old and retired Philip Marlow answers the bell one more time. Every word is well written and some of it is downright lyrical.
Private Philip Marlow comes back alive.
Osborne does a wonderful job bringing back alive the tone and wonderful storytelling of this Marlow-type novel. The writing is so nicely done, at times, I wanted to read a sentence twice. There were times, I read a chapter for a second time. Clues are craftly given.
If you are a fan of the Marlow-style mystery story, this one of Osborne’s won’t disappoint.
Reviewed in Le Coeur de l’Artiste http://www.djadamson.com/le-coeur-de-lartiste
It’s a joy to see Philip Marlowe lured back for one last job by the gleefully unsentimental Lawrence Osborne… If you like noir, pour yourself something cool and enjoy one final dark night of the soul.
I’ve always loved Philip Marlowe, and I was deeply saddened when I read the last of Raymond Chandler’s novels. The last in a series is always that way for me, as I know there won’t be any more. In this case, Lawrence Osborne has been given by the Chandler Estate the honor and privilege of writing one more Marlowe mystery. The downside is that even Philip Marlowe gets old. He’s pulled out of retirement for one last mystery. If you love Raymond Chandler and Philip Marlowe, you’ll love the chance to read one more novel.
The time of the story is 1988 and its first-person narrator is a seventy-two-year-old retired private investigator living in a house he bought in 1984 “a few miles north of Ensenada in Baja.” His name happens to be—at least for the sake of the book and this review, if not necessarily by recognized literary standards—Philip Marlowe. The extremely flimsy plot consists of the elderly detective being hired by a pair of representatives from the Pacific Mutual insurance company to look into the drowning death of the supposedly well-to-do—but “profligate” and thus bankrupt and corrupt—seventy-two-year-old real estate developer Donald Zinn, sometimes referred to as “El Donaldo.” (Does Zinn remind anyone of a real-life personage of dubious character who is [unfortunately] active at the time of this review? Did Lawrence Osborne intend it? If yes, it’s one positive I can cite.)
The retiree agrees to the job. What ensues, far from being the kind of hardboiled detective story one might reasonably expect, reads more like a travelogue of Mexico and many of its lesser-known cities, towns and locales, as the detective trails the Zinns hither and thither throughout the country, in the process meeting and becoming smitten with the thirtyish and very attractive Dolores Araya Zinn. His travels result in relatively little more than encountering a somewhat menacing character who likes to spin tops on the bars or tables he’s seated at, and an eventual violent tangle with same. No worries, though, because as he explains early on: “I also carried the cane that has been my constant servant since I broke a foot in 1977, and inside which slept a Japanese blade that a master smith had custom-made for me in Tokyo.”
Seriously? You forgot you legally owned at least one handgun before and after your retirement? More seriously, does like this sound like the Philip Marlowe *any* reader has ever heard of?
Hardcore fans of the genuine Marlowe novels know that you read Raymond Chandler far more for style, tone and characterization than for plot, the latter element being often rather difficult to make sense of depending on the particular novel. In the confusing ones—i.e., most of them—you simply coast along for the colorful, absorbing, and entertaining ride. But you needn’t concern yourself about a tumultuous journey through ONLY TO SLEEP. The ride is sluggish and largely uneventful. Lawrence Osborne reads stylistically and tonally like Chandler about as much as Ernest Hemingway sounds like Geoffrey Chaucer. The plot is practically non-existent, not at all a mystery, and the characterizations are very superficial. The protagonist could as well have been named Tooraloora Birnbaum, considering how little he resembles Philip Marlowe.
What we have here is a considerable distance from the kind of hardboiled private detective novel one expects from a pulp pioneer/master of the genre, let alone most writers’ modern take on the form. Osborne’s is a self-consciously literary approach that includes more extended, descriptive, and philosophical moments than the kinds of crackling scenes and intriguing, well-delineated characters found in the works of Chandler, his finest predecessors and legitimate successors. It reinforces what I said in my review of Benjamin Black’s THE BLACK-EYED BLONDE: authors’ estates and their publishers should stop trying to cash in on inferior products about classic characters from imitators who should stick to their own creations.
One thing is certain: the title of this one is unquestionably appropriate. THE BIG SNOOZE would have worked, too, because I truly yawned and fought to stay awake while plodding through its verbal Ambien.
© 2019 Barry Ergang
Lawrence Osborne did a fabulous job of capturing the essence of Raymond Chandler’s enduring character Philip Marlowe in this much later in life Marlowe adventure.
I chose ONLY TO SLEEP only because I love Mexico, and I am a sucker for Phillip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s conflicted and charismatic PI. The book was approved by Chandler’s estate to continue Marlowe’s adventures, and I was not disappointed. The pace of the book seems slow at first, with teasers for pages, but pretty soon we’re in it. Phillip is on in years now, and on the move in Mexico looking for the swindlers who tried to get away with the insurance money. But , of course, Phillip runs into Delores of the beautiful eyes, and it’s all over. He chases her and her would-be partner/husband through the beautiful, haunting countryside to solve the case. He can’t decide what road to take with this woman, and no spoilers here, he is true to form. He is a man of his own conscience. I just loved the places he landed, the food and drink, and the small hotels he laid his head. I wish I’d been along. Well, I was.
Author is a master prose stylist. Evokes places amazingly well. One of my favorite authors.
Brilliant… Osborne and Chandler are a perfect match.