The Marble Orchard: A Novel Featuring the Black Mask Boys : Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner

Rating:
Summary: I am glad I did not give up on this interesting novel.
Review: 3-and-a-half stars. There is a Chinese curse that states "May you live in interesting times." So to say The Marble Orchard is an interesting book may be interpreted as a good or a bad thing. And there are good and bad elements to Mr. Nolan's work.
The plot involves Raymond Chandler seeking down the killer of his wife Cissy's first husband, even though all the evidence points to suicide. Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner, three thugs and an actress specializing in vampiric roles all play parts in the not-bad mystery.
One of the interesting (and unsuccessful) things about TMO is that it is decidedly not hard-boiled. Which may be a valid take on the premise. After all, the authors who wrote the stories were very different from their creations- educated, generally refined men. But this is a fanciful take on the era anyway, so why not go the extra step, I thought? Most of the people were very polite in this novel; its early sections read like one of the English school of mysteries that Chandler disliked and so vigorously deconstructed in The Simple Art of Murder.
But I read on, and at some point, things subtly shifted for the darker and better, and made me realize that the story structure was skillfully similar, even if the trappings were more urbane: the joes and janes peopling the book got nastier, Chandler got sapped and awakened doped (in a scene very like Farewell, My Lovely); Hammett pulled a gun on some thugs; a blackmail plot surfaced; and duplicitous motives appeared out of what had been to that point a disappointingly linear plot. The resolution was as contrived as any good Black Mask novel should be. Not all that plausible, but possible, and entertaining.
Another great thing is how Nolan plays with the way that Chandler and Philip Marlowe *were* alike: a romantic core which appears late in the novel beneath their crust of cynicism. Also, the camaraderie portrayed between Hammett, Chandler and Gardner is a big plus, even if it was entirely manufactured.
The bad things about the novel end up being very few, but they are harmful. Like many modern writers, Nolan seems embarrassed at the lack of political correctness in the original Black Mask stories he seeks to bring to mind. So he creates characters and subplots which advance the story not a whit and seem to exist only to administer some ethereal type of social justice. This treacle was applied, I am sure, with the best of intentions, but garnered the worst of results, coming off as phony, preachy and altogether out-of-place.
Also, the non-stop factoids are interesting for history and trivia buffs to a point, but Nolan goes too far- a litany of what Hammett read as he began his writing career is unnecessary, dull and obvious. The history of cities is again mildly interesting but superfluous; Chandler painted a better picture of SoCal towns with two snotty comments than do the encyclopedic entries of this novel. And, surprisingly, the Chaplin, Welles, Hearst and Temple cameos actually distract from the atmosphere, as they have no relevancy to the plot whatsoever and instead remind us that what we are reading is not historical at all.
Still, Mr. Nolan has succeeded in writing a very well-crafted novel that held my interest despite being nothing like what I expected- not easy to do. And this Black Mask fan thanks him sincerely for keeping an era and a genre, if not exactly a style, alive and kicking.