Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding.
Review: This is a great novel for so many reasons. The dialogue is clever without descending into cuteness. The supporting cast of characters is a truly fascinating one. The descriptions of places are vivid. Be they the homes of the obscenely rich or rundown slum dwellings. The intricate plot unfolds in a way that really holds the reader's interest with a couple of nice plump red herrings thrown in for good measure.
As always, Marlowe himself is tough as nails and completely hard-boiled. Except that towards the end of the book, he surprises us by becoming sentimental. This uncharacteristic sentimentality is not directed toward either of the two female love interests. But rather toward a tall, violet eyed boatman named Red who helps Marlowe in his hour of need. You really have to admire Raymond Chandler for knowing just when to interject the unexpected.
I would love to give Farewell, My Lovely 5 stars, but I have to deduct 1 star. The reason? I can't for the life of me understand what the killer hoped to gain by commiting murder in the first place.
If Mr. Chandler were still alive, I'm sure he would address that particular concern in the manner of a college professor talking to a kindergartener. I can just imagine him saying: "Reality is not straightforward. Only in the world of fiction are motives clearly defined and unambiguous. My writing is meant to reflect real life." {From The Big Sleep (1939)- "It had the austere simplicity of fiction rather than the tangled woof of fact."}
Rating: 
Summary: Chandler's best
Review: This is my favorite Raymond Chandler book and that's saying quite a lot. It has a sense of mystery to it that transcends the mystery genre.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointing audio production
Review: This review is for the CD version of Eliot Gould's reading.I love Chandler's writing and have read "Farewell" at least four times. Gould does a good job of reading it, too. What's frustrating about the CD version is that the disks are not indexed. There was no effort to make a disk begin at the beginning of a chapter, for instance. Also, each disk holds one track only. That means if you want to pause for the night at the end of chapter 5, good luck finding your place when you return to listening in a few days. Breaking the audio into tracks is a very easy thing to do, so primitive a technology that it makes it seem that this CD box set was mastered in the 1980s. There is no competing product as of June 2003, however. Devotees may want to make their own MP3 files and then donate the CDs to a library.
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