Farewell, my Lovely by Raymond Chandler

 

It's always refreshing to read a classic that actually deserves the designation. This does. The story gets a little ... something (cluttered or jumbled or disjointed) in middle-end, but eventually comes together reasonably well, and Chandler's prose is a pure joy to read, laden with nifty unexpected turns of phrase. It's not perfect: The characters--other than Marlowe--often don't have much to distinguish them, and there are often attitudes bandied about that grate harshly on modern nerves. It's a grimly cynical book, pretty much everyone is some shade of corrupt, but that's kinda table stakes, here. I'm happy to have come across this in the local library of our choice.