Rating: 
Summary: Marlowe Becomes Spenser
Review: After reading this book, I had to re-read the editorial hype in disbelief. Anyone who can't tell where Chandler left off and Parker took over is blind. Philip Marlowe was certainly an inspiration for Parker's Spenser character, so you'd expect some similarities, even if they were written by two different authors. But in this book, Marlowe does both a time-warp and a personality transformation right around Chapter Four, so that by the end of the story he walks and talks and acts like a wisecracking private eye from modern Boston - the only character that Parker seems able to write well. As if that's not bad enough, Marlowe appears to quit smoking somewhere in the middle, and he and his wife end with the same can't-live-with-you, can't-live-without-you relationship (we can still be lovers! she cheerfully declares after asking for a divorce) that is at the heart of the Spenser and Susan novels. Susan Silverman has a lot of complicated reasons to settle for less than a traditional marriage, but Mrs. Marlowe doesn't. The mystery isn't too bad if you like lots of lurid sex and murder, but it doesn't justify the sloppy writing. The end is unsatisfying because the baddest guy of all not only gets away, but gets Marlowe's assistance because, again like Spenser, he's a sucker for a nice woman in love with her man - even if the man is a scumbag. All in all, unless you're a serious fan and HAVE to read everything Parker has written (in other words, unless you're doomed like me), I'd recommend reading Chandler if you like Chandler, and Parker if you like Parker. Mixing them produced a foul smell.
Rating: 
Summary: Chandler would be proud.
Review: After years of reading and watching Spenser, I couldn't wait to sink my teeth in Marlowe by Robert Parker. While I was reading it, I was consiously watching for where one left off and the other began. I couldn't tell!! After reading this book, I started reading more Chandler books and still couldn't tell. It is a wonderful story that allows a great authors work to be continued. All I can say is that it is a fantastic read that I have re-read six times. Vive Marlowe
Rating: 
Summary: Parker does Chandler proud
Review: Chandler died in 1959 leaving behind the opening chapters of this Philip Marlowe PI novel which Parker has completed. Here, Marlowe has a rich wife (shades of Hammett's Nick & Nora Charles) and has moved from L.A. to the big-buck community of Poodle Springs, where he is hired by the area crime boss to track down a missing local who has run out on a gambling debt. The plot evolves with murder, blackmail, and a little bigamy for good measure. Though there's more talk than action and Marlowe's usual hard edges are rounded off a bit, there is still deep intrigue and lots of snappy dialogue. Completing a story started by another is difficult, especially when it involves an estalished character, but Parker has done an impressive and admirable job in adapting to Chandler's style and sense of humor. All one can say when reading this novel is, "Marlowe, it's good to have you back."--Michael Rogers
Rating: 
Summary: A Book to Avoid
Review: Even if you're not a Raymond Chandler fan this is a book to avoid. The plot is childish, derivative, and tedious, one that you're seen or read a million times before, and the characters are drawn entirely from nearly identical characters in earlier Marlowe books. The relationship between Marlowe and his rich wife is grotesque. Chandler was already at the end of his powers when he started this book in 1959 (see his previous book, "Playback", to see how far he had already fallen), and the first four chapters written by him are sadly forced and inept. If anything, Parker does a better job of writing once he takes over but what he has to work with is hopeless. His major problem is that he can't make the reader believe that this story is actually taking place in the late 50's or, possibly, early 60's. 1990 attitudes intrude, probably unconsciously, and it is obvious at all times that Parker is trying to write the equivalent of a historical novel without actually telling the reader that it *is* a historical novel. Skip this book and go read "The Little Sister" or "The Long Goodbye".
Rating:
Summary: "CHANDLER LIVES ON THROUGH THE PEN OF ROBERT B. PARKER"
Review: For all you Chandler fans who can't seem to get enough of the adventures of Philip Marlowe, be sure to read Chandler'slast unfinished novel, "Poodle Springs," started in 1959 shortly before Chandler's death. Finished 30 years later by Robert B. Parker, Marlowe fans will be hard pressed to find where Chandler left off and Parker picks up. The storyline is one Chandler himself would have been proud of and Parker's story telling abilities will bring you back for a second and third reading. Parker has captured the true feel of Chandler's detective through dialog and scenes. Marlowe's character comes through in tact in the true spirit that Chandler had intended. Don't miss this supurb thriller. If you like this one, you'll also enjoy Robert B. Parker's sequel to Raymondler's "Big Sleep". It's called "Perchance To Dream" and is another great Philip Marlowe adventure.
Rating:
Summary: "CHANDLER LIVES ON THROUGH THE PEN OF ROBERT B. PARKER"
Review: For all you Chandler fans who can't seem to get enough of the adventures of Philip Marlowe, be sure to read Chandler'slast unfinished novel, "Poodle Springs," started in 1959 shortly before Chandler's death. Finished 30 years later by Robert B. Parker, Marlowe fans will be hard pressed to find where Chandler left off and Parker picks up. The storyline is one Chandler himself would have been proud of and Parker's story telling abilities will bring you back for a second and third reading. Parker has captured the true feel of Chandler's detective through dialog and scenes. Marlowe's character comes through in tact in the true spirit that Chandler had intended. Don't miss this supurb thriller. If you like this one, you'll also enjoy Robert B. Parker's sequel to Raymondler's "Big Sleep". It's called "Perchance To Dream" and is another great Philip Marlowe adventure.
Rating:
Summary: If you like Parker's Spenser novels, enjoy.
Review: Having never read a Marlowe book, I can't imagine that Parker kept his writing very true to the spirit of Marlowe. Having read every Spenser novel, I can tell you that about 1/3 of the way through the book I just started imagining that Marlowe was Spenser in some sort of time warp and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Is this the way it should have been? Of course not, but I like the Spenser novels so I guess I really can't complain. I just kept wondering where Hawk was!
Rating: 
Summary: A fast, easy read
Review: I found this pleasant enough, enjoyable enough. I read it easily in a couple of readings. And I did enjoy it, but it didn't grab hold of me like Raymond Chandler's stories. I had no trouble lying it down around the 2/3 point, and eventually coming back to finish it. I always had a bit more trouble lying down a Raymond Chandler story. I didn't often stop and look through earlier parts to confirm an idea in my mind, as I did with Chandler. I didn't have any "aha!"s throughout the book. The Marlowe characterization was weak. I didn't notice that he quit smoking in the middle of the book, as one reviewer thought he noticed...in fact, he kept up pretty well with alternating between the pipe and cigarettes all the way through. Being married does obviously create problems he hadn't had before. It does inhibit him, and just the situation does keep him from being the Marlowe we're used to. He has someone else besides himself to think of now, and it's messing up his basic style. The case he's working on and the subplot of his shaky marriage do work together well enough, because the personal challenges in his life are affecting his feelings toward the characters involved. On it's own, this is good enough, but not great. A larger than average percentage of the characters make it to the end of the book. And Parker doesn't have quite the photographic description of people and places that Chandler did. So it will let down Chandler & Marlowe fans, but supply others with a brisk, satisfying , though likely soon forgotten, read.
Rating:
Summary: A fast, easy read
Review: I found this pleasant enough, enjoyable enough. I read it easily in a couple of readings. And I did enjoy it, but it didn't grab hold of me like Raymond Chandler's stories. I had no trouble lying it down around the 2/3 point, and eventually coming back to finish it. I always had a bit more trouble lying down a Raymond Chandler story. I didn't often stop and look through earlier parts to confirm an idea in my mind, as I did with Chandler. I didn't have any "aha!"s throughout the book. The Marlowe characterization was weak. I didn't notice that he quit smoking in the middle of the book, as one reviewer thought he noticed...in fact, he kept up pretty well with alternating between the pipe and cigarettes all the way through. Being married does obviously create problems he hadn't had before. It does inhibit him, and just the situation does keep him from being the Marlowe we're used to. He has someone else besides himself to think of now, and it's messing up his basic style. The case he's working on and the subplot of his shaky marriage do work together well enough, because the personal challenges in his life are affecting his feelings toward the characters involved. On it's own, this is good enough, but not great. A larger than average percentage of the characters make it to the end of the book. And Parker doesn't have quite the photographic description of people and places that Chandler did. So it will let down Chandler & Marlowe fans, but supply others with a brisk, satisfying , though likely soon forgotten, read.
Rating:
Summary: extremely tentative recommendation
Review: My apologies in advance, but this is an "on the one hand/on the other hand" review. On the one hand, for anyone who loves Raymond Chandler and Philip Marlowe, as I do, it is great to have a new story featuring the "Galahad of the Gutter", even if Chandler only wrote the first three chapters. And Robert B. Parker ( of Spenser fame) does a competent job of completing the story. On the other hand, despite the exception of Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man, I think that the modern trend of giving private eyes buddies and girlfriends has been a catastrophic development for the hard boiled novel. The very essence of these novels, epitomized in The Maltese Falcon, Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer series and the other Philip Marlowe stories, is the independence and accompanying vulnerability of the detectives. So this Marlowe story, which finds him married to a wealthy heiress and comfortably ensconced in Poodle Springs (a thinly veiled Pal Springs), is disappointing evidence that even a master of the genre was drifting in this direction when he died. The mystery here is vintage Chandler, with blackmail, pornography, polygamy and the like and when the focus turns to Marlowe working on the case it is quite good. But the scenes between him and his wife, particularly the tensions between them as a result of his insistence on a return to detecting, bring the story to a screeching halt every time it builds up a head of steam. The result is a very mixed bag and an extremely tentative recommendation--an airplane book. GRADE: C
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