I’m afraid I found Only To Sleep pretty dull and rather aptly titled for me. As a lover of Chandler’s originals I approached it with some scepticism, especially after John Banville’s The Black-Eyed Blonde, which I thought was a pretty dreadful pastiche of Chandler’s style. This was stylistically better, but really didn’t add up to much.

It’s a good idea in many ways to set the book in 1988, when Marlowe is 74 years old; his narrative voice is calmer, less snappy and the wisecracks and brilliant similes almost absent. It’s reasonably plausible from an older Marlowe and avoids having to try to imitate the inimitable originals. The trouble is, it’s not very interesting. The plot, such as it is, revolves around a dodgy death in Mexico, to where Marlowe has now retired. He is persuaded to look into the matter by an insurance company who aren’t happy about the claim and then...not very much happens. I remember an old Private Eye parody of one of the le Carré TV adaptations along the lines of:
Lengthy shot of Smiley walking slowly up a lane to the door of a house.
Smiley knocks.
Long pause.
Window opens upstairs and a woman’s face appears.
Smiley: “My name is Smiley. George Smiley.”
Pause.
Woman: “Go away!”
Window slams. Long close-up of Smileys thoughtful face. Eventually he turns away.
Lengthy shot of Smiley’s back as he walks slowly away from the house.
Repeat for four following scenes.

Well, I got rather that feeling with Only To Sleep. Marlowe talks to a lot of people whom we don’t know in unfamiliar places so it’s all rather hard to keep track of. A very slow picture of the dead man emerges. Slowly. And so on. Without Chandler’s matchless prose, human insight and wit to underpin it, the whole thing became dull to me and I began to skip, without feeling I was missing much.

This isn’t the mess that The Black-Eyed Blonde was, but it’s not a significant addition to the Marlowe canon either. I can’t really recommend it.

(My thanks to Vintage Digital for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Commissioned by the Raymond Chandler estate, this novel offers a study of one of literature’s very famous detectives.

I was a bit dubious about a unique detective coming out of retirement but I read this as a standalone. Well, Marlowe is now 72 so it’s easy to think that he’s not really the same man he was anyway. He does like to lok back and remember though, but for me this was a new read.

A PI’s work is never done! There’s a lot to this book and I was taken on quite a journey in every sense of the word!


It’s set in the coastal areas of California and Mexico, and it’s in these remote, dusty areas that many a con man, shady character and down right undesirables which Marlowe must second guess and get one over on.

These places are far from any tourist spot, with roads Chris Rea would sing about and tracks you really would not want to go down if you weren’t a fictional detective. The overall sense of place, dusty air, rusty cars and the high heat of the landscape is evoked with style.

There’s plenty of bars, roadside shacks and random clubs in the book too.One bar even has a generator that invites customers to experience electric shocks for a free Mescal.

The historical backdrop of the time is also evoked to help steady the story and characters in time. In 1988, Reagan's presidential term is over when Marlowe gets the call.

I enjoyed it, but it did seem very long and a bit convoluted at times. But you can’t deny that at 72, he’s still got some grit and determination (or down right carelessness in his bones depending on how you look at things.)

It’s 1988 and Philip Marlowe is already 72 years old and retired. But when an insurance asks for his help to investigate the death of a certain Donald Zinn, his curiosity is aroused and he accepts the job. After talking to the widow – young and beautiful and hardly mourning – he travels to Mexico to follow the last traces of the rich American. He soon finds out that there are some pieces about his death which do not really make sense and then he happens to find the man alive and kicking. But Zinn isn’t stupid, he knows how to get money and how to get rid of Marlowe. A scavenger hunt starts across Mexico.

Lawrence Osborne, who could already win me as a loyal reader with his former novels “Beautiful Animals” and “The Forgiven”, has done a great job in his Philip Marlowe novel. I liked Raymond Chandler’s hard boiled crime novels about the investigator and it is a risk to copy such a great writer. Yet, Osborne succeeded in creating exactly the mood that one finds in the old Marlowe novels and he placed the novel convincingly in the late 1980s. The title already is an homage to Chandler’s greatest novel and you can feel that Osborne has a lot of respect for his idol.

The novel itself has everything it needs: a femme fatale who seems to shift easily from one role into the other, a treacherous couple, a fierce environment where bribery reigns and money easily floats between the informant and the investigator. Some unexpected twists and turns made the plot move at a high pace, but most of all, it is the atmosphere that made it a great enjoyment to read. Even though it set in 1988, you can still feel the old Marlowe who acts as if nothing had changed since the 1930s and actually much that happens in Mexico could have happened decades before in exactly the same way. For me, Osborne did a great job and his Marlowe is in no way inferior to Chandler’s.

Set in Mexico and California, Marlowe takes a temporary break from retirement to investigate the death of Donald Zinn (who leaves behind a young, beautiful widow) on behalf of the insurance company who finds his death suspicious but has no way to prove it otherwise. This novel is a true amalgamation of two literary geniuses – a natural and seamless blend of two of my favourite writers. Osborne is completely respectful of Raymond Chandler’s writing style, language nuance and creation of an elderly, albeit incredibly convincing, Philip Marlowe, but he also manages to inject his own delicious and adept prose and descriptive passages too, breathing life into 1988’s Mexico and California (without ever holding up the pace of this action-packed noir thriller). I read somewhere that Osborne had fun writing this novel; this makes sense because I had a lot of fun reading it. I thoroughly enjoyed being reacquainted with a beloved literary character with a similar storyline (surprising twists, turns and chases included) and a upbeat pace kept me whipping through the pages - the only thing that made me realise it wasn’t an Osborne narrative is his use of first person narrative (Osborne’s novels float from character to character in third person). I highly recommend it; with ‘Only to Sleep’ you’ll be getting a deal of two for the price of one! This novel will make you want to re-read Chandler’s detective thrillers and anything ever written by Osborne!

Atmospheric story in the style of Raymond Chandler. This works as a nod to the original style of detective noir, you could believe this Philip Marlow story to be an original. If you are looking for this type of novel, then this won't disappoint. However, for me, there was too much style and not enough substance. This is more about the places, drinks and food in Mexico than it is a thriller. It could almost be a travelogue.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for an advance copy of Only to Sleep, a resurrection of Chandler's Philip Marlowe series.

It's 1988 and a 72 year old Marlowe is not enjoying his retirement in rural Mexico. After 10 years of doing not much he's bored so when insurance company, Pacific Mutual, approaches him to look into a suspicious claim he jumps at the chance. Failed property developer Donald Zinn died in mysterious circumstances in Mexico and his young widow walked off with a cool $2 million so the insurance company wants some detail.

I enjoyed Only to Sleep in a different way. It is an interesting concept to make Marlowe an old guy with all the attendant problems, rather than reprising his heyday of violence and dames. That said, I found it quite a difficult read. To my shame I have not read a Marlowe novel before so I have nothing to compare it with but I was quite impressed with the initial tone of world weary cynicism which seems in keeping with the hard boiled genre. My problem lies with the narrative which is in the first person and has a sort of stream of consciousness approach. Marlowe is constantly assessing his state of mind but as I didn't really get his thought processes I found it a bit impenetrable at times. The plot is fairly interesting but rather inconclusive so I didn't get the big rush of satisfaction I love at the end.

I was, however, blown away by the lyricism of the descriptions. Mr Osborne paints a vivid picture of Mexico and Southern California- I could feel the heat, aridity, lawlessness and, at times, the exuberance and joie de vivre of the setting. It makes the book worth reading.

With what is now an exceedingly common practice in the publishing world, Lawrence Osborne revives the hard boiled noir series featuring the unforgettable Philip Marlowe, albeit his own version of Marlowe. Set in the coastal areas of California and Mexico, locations that serve well for the underhand dealings, shady characters, con merchants, and as Marlowe terms it the 'able grables', all requisite requirements for a Philip Marlowe outing. Osborne does a particularly good job in making these places come alive, his rich descriptions evoking oodles of atmosphere and the overpowering heat. There are bars with generators that invite customers to experience electric shocks for a free Mescal, an offer Marlowe can never resist, convinced the shocks have health giving properties for him. It is 1988, Reagan's presidential term is over, and a 72 year old retired Marlowe living in California receives a visit from two men from the Pacific Mutual Insurance Company. They are paying out a huge sum to the widow of Donald Zinn, Dolores Araya. Zinn's body was recovered on a beach in Mexico, identified by Dolores, and rather too quickly cremated. The insurance people have no reason to think fraud has been perpetrated, all the paperwork is in order. But something feels not quite right and fluent Spanish speaker Marlowe is the man they want to look into it, and they are willing to pay.

Marlowe is bored, and despite his age and the frailties associated with it, he wants in, he wants that last adventure. He may be a shadow of his former self physically, and he certainly bemoans and resents the fact he is no longer in a position to do anything about the beautiful women that catch his eye, but he has his trusty cane, which harbours a deadly weapon should he need it, which is just as well because his survival will depend on it. Donald Zinn turns out to be con man, a chancer, whose entire wealth as a real estate developer is built on a mountain of debt that his death has rather neatly resolved, whilst leaving Dolores a wealthy woman as she cashes in on their assets. Zinn was a cokehead, living the good life of yachting, fishing, drinking and women, but a man with a crazy and nasty side to him. The beautiful Dolores Araya turns out to be a far more complex woman that Marlowe first thinks in this twisted last case for Marlowe, and he certainly has his own way of resolving the issues that arise, after all, he feels no particular loyalty to the insurance company.

This was an enjoyable resurrection of the elderly, yet still iconic Philip Marlowe by Lawrence Osborne, who certainly captures elements of Marlowe in this novel. The spirit of Marlowe, still wanting to live the vibrant and adventurous life, even if it is without the dames, to once again have a case, even though the years have robbed him of much of his physical capabilities, is wonderfully conveyed. Marlowe is not afraid to die, and if he does, he will have died doing what he loves and does best, and who can argue with that? What I particularly liked was the strong sense of location and the wide range of characters that inhabit the pages of this gripping book. Many thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC.

It must be a daunting task to follow into Raymond Chandler’s footstep and to write a follow up about the master detective of noir crime fiction, Philip Marlowe. Lawrence Osborne has done a pretty good job in my view, capturing the almost suicidal mood of Marlowe in old age while avoiding copying Chandler completely giving the book its own voice. The novel flows along in an almost dreamlike quality which made it a perfect summer read during the hottest spell of the year.


Very befittingly the novel is set in Mexico in 1988 where Marlowe is living out his retirement, hitting the booze like he has a second liver to spare, the only female company his housekeeper these days. When he is visited by two gentlemen from an insurance company at the La Fonda bar, his favorite hangout, and his retirement comes to an abrupt halt. Their offer to him: investigate a seemingly accidental death, an offer which is too good to reject since the investigation seems easy enough. Besides his bank account could use some cash injection. Californian businessman Donald Zinn has washed up dead on a beach in Mexico, apparently after the consumption of considerable amounts of alcohol and some drugs. His much younger widow identified him at a Mexican police station and arranged his immediate cremation making further forensic work impossible for the insurance company. This leaves them with no alternative but to pay out Zinn’s sizable life policy to the young widow. Marlowe is hired and when visiting Zinn’s widow as a first stop of the investigation in California, he learns she is not only beautiful but that he hasn’t lost any of his old detective skills. He soon begins to seriously question whether it was really Zinn who drowned leaving him no choice but to dig deeper and to stir up some trouble amongst people who knew Zinn and his wifein Mexico.