(Drivebycuriosity) - Lawrence Osborne belongs to my favorite authors. I love his novels "Hunters in the Dark", "The Glass Kingdom" & "The Ballad of a Small Player" and I also enjoyed his book "Bangkok Days (my reviews: Hunters Kingdom Ballad Bangkok ). The British writer was asked by the Raymond Chandler estate to write a Philip Marlow novel in tribute to Chandler. The result is the book "Only to Sleep" (amazon ). Being also a fan of the American master of hard boiled thrillers I had to read it.
The novel is - of course - told in first person by Philip himself. He had aged a bit; now he is 71 and lives in Mexico & Southern California. Marlow gets hired - reactivated - by a Californian insurance company to investigate the death of an American client who´s widow had cashed a huge amount of money. The investigation drives Marlow to several places in Mexico (this is a spoiler free blog).
I needed to read about 60% till I really enjoyed this book. Then I discovered the voice of Chandler served with Osborne´s unique style. Then the novel has Chandler´s characteristic "bewildering dreamlike plot" blended with Osborn`s dense atmosphere. I still like the above mentioned Osborne novels better - maybe because they are set in exotic Asian places - but reading "Only to Sleep" was a lot of fun as well. Osborne´s Marlow is a creepy and unpleasant person as many characters in Osborne novels, but the book reawoke my appetite for Mexico & Tequila. I am looking forward to read more Osborne novels.
P.S. Fans of Osborne might want to read his very short story "The White Gods" published in the "New Statesman" - in the moment of writing free on Internet ( newstatesman ).
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