Mystery Review: The High Window involves some of the tropes we've seen in the two previous Philip Marlowe outings. Menacing goons, the old and rich, hapless dweebs who come to harm, gangster club owners, gorgeous dames, not-too-corrupt cops, the effete wealthy, the down and out doing their best. Chandler makes it all seem effortless, with enough surprises to keep it compelling. Marlowe saves a damsel in distress even as he seems to be slipping into mild depression ("The white moonlight was cold and clear, like the justice we dream of but don't find"). There's sufficient snappy patter but few memorable characters. No Moose Malloy or any member of the Sternwood family. The most notable plot point is that The High Window is the one with the Brasher Doubloon (which is a real thing). Still highly readable and entertaining, there's little action and Marlowe does little detecting. He mostly just bumps into things until the bodies pile up. Although alcoholism always lurks around the edges, the story line doesn't have the extreme seediness of the previous books. Yet Marlowe is charming and interesting enough that I wish I'd been riding a bus on a rainy night in 1942 having picked up a copy of The High Window at the station. At one point he and a guard outside a gated community discuss the conflict between wealth and democracy, how the "trouble with revolutions ... is that they get in the hands of the wrong people." As seems to be the case with American novels in the Forties, this can only be enjoyed despite the casual ethnic slurs. It was made into a movie in 1942 as Time to Kill (with different characters) and in 1947 as The Brasher Doubloon. A good, solid read. It's all I need in a mystery, but just a little less brilliant than what came before. [4★]
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