Mystery Review: Red Wind: A Collection of Short Stories is a seemingly random selection of five of Raymond Chandler's short detective stories. None feature Philip Marlowe. The two best stories, "Goldfish" (1936) and "Red Wind" (1938), later reappeared in Trouble is My Business with their protagonists (Ted Carmady and John Dalmas, respectively) magically transformed into Philip Marlowe. They're also the only two written in the first person, as were all the Marlowe stories. Two others, "Guns at Cyrano's" (1936) and "I'll Be Waiting" (1939) were subsequently collected in The Simple Art of Murder. The fifth story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot" (1933) can be found in Collected Stories. The elegiac "I'll Be Waiting" is the only piece in Red Wind that has the feel and tone of a short story, and appropriately it was first published in the Saturday Evening Post. The other four originally appeared in Black Mask or Dime Detective and read more like short novels. The reader can easily envision Chandler adding subplots, red herrings, and encounters with colorful characters to make them full length books. "Blackmailers Don't Shoot" was Chandler's first published work, which took him six months to write. The plot is is somewhat chaotic as the author focuses on mean streets verisimilitude and creating a rounded and compelling main character. Tellingly, it features a detective named "Mallory," who is tougher than tough and oft-surrounded by bullet-riddled bodies. It also has some of the Chandler verve: after being shot Mallory's "right leg felt like the plagues of Egypt." I don't know if this collection can still be found (my copy is from 1946), but Red Wind: A Collection of Short Stories contains five entertaining tales as well as a bit of history. [4★]
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