A collection of longish stories, all structure with chapters. At a 3.42 average, a 3.75 type book. There are some Philip Marlowe tales in the latter part of the book. Plenty of private investigations.

Trouble Is My Business : Killer in the Rain - Raymond Chandler
Trouble Is My Business : The Man Who Liked Dogs - Raymond Chandler
Trouble Is My Business : The Curtain - Raymond Chandler
Trouble Is My Business : Try the Girl - Raymond Chandler
Trouble Is My Business : Mandarin's Jade - Raymond Chandler
Trouble Is My Business : Bay City Blues - Raymond Chandler
Trouble Is My Business : The Lady in the Lake - Raymond Chandler
Trouble Is My Business : No Crime in the Mountains - Raymond Chandler
Trouble Is My Business : Trouble is My Business - Raymond Chandler
Trouble Is My Business : Finger Man - Raymond Chandler
Trouble Is My Business : Goldfish - Raymond Chandler
Trouble Is My Business : Red Wind - Raymond Chandler

"I sighed. "Gunfire," I said. "A dead man on the floor. A naked, doped girl in a chair not knowing what had happened. A killer I couldn't have caught and you couldn't have caught--then. Behind all this a poor old roughneck that was breaking his heart trying to do the right thing in a miserable spot. Go ahead--stick it into me. I'm not sorry."

3.5 out of 5


Saints and Snares.

4 out of 5


Silver-Wig gone.

3 out of 5


Bruising finish.

3 out of 5


Psychic strong-arm man.

3 out of 5


Big Chin slipper her, Shorty.

3.5 out of 5


Sloppy plant.

3.5 out of 5


Shoe money half coyote not quite out of Japanese gunmen, but out of ratzis.

3.5 out of 5


"How else would I make a nickel?"

4 out of 5


Casino killing group.

3 out of 5


Double pearler deception.

3.5 out of 5


Some missing pearls, a dame, a dodgy cop, and a really good night for drinking.

3.5 out of 5

I love Chandler. The hard-boiled PI maybe isn't his invention and it is hard pressed to figure anyone else out that can do it better. Maybe a bit of Dashiel Hammett, Complete Novels, whose Red Harvest puts the violent films of today to miserable shame. Trouble is a collection of shorts featuring the beloved Philip Marlowe, who always seems to find himself tangled in a mess that is a mile deeper than it ever started out. The language is sparse and drove American literature a bit to the edge it became in later novels. Partly because of Chandler being a Brit and not really knowing the American dialect, he sort of made it up.

The best part of are the continuously flawed characters Chandler creates. Hollywood actors, Las Vegas gamblers, tycoons and misfits of all types swirl together in mayhem that is understated and portrays what America felt about Los Angeles and its participants of the 30's and 40's. It is timeless though. Many situations could very well happen in the Hollywood Hills of 2007. And you end up liking them all somehow. He is sympathetic but still manages to give every one a dose of the medicine they deserve. Marlowe is the morals the story and also the amoral example, in it for himself at many times.

I I had to picked this one up after Christina made funny of me for picking up the The Long Goodbye for the twentieth time.

Like a classic old movie that you love in spite (or because of?) its in old black and white, the obvious back-lot sets, and no super-realistic surround sound, this collection of stories shows its age but wears it well.

If Dashiell Hammett is the D. W. Griffith of hard-boiled detective stories, Chandler is the Alfred Hitchcock.

(Kindle version review) One of my favorite writers and collections, but this is a very poor format ebook. The OCR-related typos are very annoying - they aren't uniform, it's as though several pages, scattered through the book, weren't edited or checked at all.

I have reviewed Raymond Chandler's seven full Phillip Marlowe epics elsewhere in this space. For those who doubt that a mere plebian detective in a once seedy genre can hold your attention and win your admiration as very, very good literature then try these four short pieces to work up the 'big' boys. You will not be disappointed. Moreover, you will get a fair peek at what makes Marlowe tick-his sense of honor, his doggedness in the face of adversity and his tilting after windmills when he gets his teeth in a case. And it does not hurt if there is a good-looking 'dame' in the bargain.

If none of the above convinces you then get this book for the preface by the master Chandler himself about his take, circa 1950, on the meaning of the detective genre as literature. As we know his special pleading then is now the wisdom of the academy.

ON BECOMING PHILLIP MARLOWE

Apparently there are many, many editions of this work. Above I have reviewed the one that has Chandler's introduction. Since then I have found a copy under the same title that has 12 stories in it many of which are different from the above. If you can find it- Vintage Paperback-1988- you will be justly rewarded because what you will get are snatches of stories with various charcters, locales, named detectives and different ending that will later go on to become The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely and Lady in the Lake. Get it if you can, if for no other reason than to see how the master noir detective writer moved the work forward. Amazing.