Once a rom-com queen, Kendra James is now a fading Hollywood star. Her husband has been shot dead and her step-daughter has disappeared, so she turns to a private detective to find her. Enter Philip Marlowe who, with the help of his alcohol-dependent cop father, will discover more than he bargained for in his search for Cody James. While also attempting to help a second client – the beautiful Brit Ren Stewart, whose son has been abducted by his American father and spirited off to L.A. – Marlowe will come into contact with Armenian gangsters and, inevitably, the Russian mob. The biggest question now is whether he can stay alive long enough to solve either of these cases.

Let’s ignore the most obvious thing about Joe Ide’s The Goodbye Coast for a minute, and take a look at the plot. It’s a solid detective novel, full of action and with a well-thought-out mystery at its heart. It opens a window onto the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles and Hollywood, and the corruption and crime that powers the city’s fabled movie business. There’s a darkness here, both in the city, and on the microscopic level of the individual characters. Kendra James is perfectly cast, beautiful yet aloof, the type of person that it’s impossible to warm to; the step-daughter is a spoiled brat on the verge of adulthood, who forms an inexplicable bond with the old alcoholic policeman that is charged with her care. Ide does characters well, giving us a reason to care for the story’s outcome because we need to know how it all comes out for the people involved. The city, too, is a central character and its presence is felt throughout, a dark and seedy city run by violent gangs, a much different L.A. than the one we see in travel brochures and upbeat movies. There’s no doubt that Ide is a very talented writer, one who knows exactly how to push our buttons, and to craft a gripping story that moves at pace without leaving anyone behind. But there’s a problem with The Goodbye Coast that puts a dampener on the whole thing, which brings us back to the elephant in the room.

In case it’s not immediately obvious, The Goodbye Coast is set in the present day. When I discovered this, about two pages into the story, my heart sank. The central character is none other than Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, perhaps one of the most iconic characters in crime fiction. Marlowe is a product of his time, a smoking, drinking, wise-cracking private detective who plies his trade in the Los Angeles of the early twentieth century. He’s a dinosaur, but a character who has inspired countless others, from the obvious copycats to the offspring of a more subtle origin. But he’s a character that would be well out of his depth in the modern world, a character that wouldn’t fit in to this more politically correct age without losing some of his defining characteristics. Which is, unfortunately, what has happened here: there’s nothing in The Goodbye Coast that makes Marlowe stand out from any other Pl in the history of the genre, nor is there anything to which the reader can point and say, “That’s the Marlowe we know and love.” It’s a generic PI novel that has co-opted the iconic name to try and make it stand out, but the character could just as easily be called Lew Archer or Thomas Magnum or Nancy Drew and the story would lose nothing. Hell, create a new private eye altogether and nothing would change. In this sense, The Goodbye Coast is a massive disappointment. Philip Marlowe neither needs – nor deserves, for that matter – a twenty-first century reboot and fans of Chandler’s original should stick with Chandler (or Benjamin Black’s The Black-Eyed Blonde, set contemporaneously with Chandler’s novels, or Lawrence Osborne’s Only To Sleep which takes a septuagenarian Marlowe to Mexico in his retirement, both of which present a character who is undoubtedly Philip Marlowe).

So there you have it. On the one hand, The Goodbye Coast is a well-written and fun detective novel. On the other, it’s an unnecessary reboot of a character that should never have been taken out of his original time period. If you can ignore the fact that this is supposed to be THE Philip Marlowe, then it’s worth a read, but if you go in expecting to find the character that we all know and love, it’s probably best to avoid this altogether. There is no doubt that Joe Ide is a talented writer, but this feels like something of a misstep, an experiment gone wrong, and we can but hope that this is the last we’ll see of a modern-day Philip Marlowe.

Raymond Chandler is one of my favorite writer and was a bit wary of reading this reboot of Marlowe.
I can say the author did an excellent job and he was able to recreate the character and not making me miss the original character.
It's an excellent thriller, there's plenty of humour and a riveting plot that kept me reading.
I can't wait to read other books by this author.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This novel is a great reboot of the classic Marlowe stories, with a wonderful modern twist.
Philip Marlowe is in Hollywood with two missing cases to solve. One, a daughter with a dreadful step mother and the second, the son of a British mother who’s been taken by his American father.
As time goes by Marlowe is pulled from pillar to post. Dealing with a bratty girl, a needy mother, ruthless gangsters and, probably the worst thing, his drunk judgemental father who has been suspended from his job as a LA police detective.
This is ingeniously funny, highly emotional and a truly brilliant detective novel.
With a rich cast of characters that the reader will love, hate and want to throttle, Joe Ide has put a superb spin on the Marlowe name, bringing it into the modern era with real aplomb. I thought this book is simply marvellous and highly recommend it.

I am a big fan of this author's IQ series so, although really knowing nothing about Marlowe and Chandler, I thought I'd give this a whirl. And, on the whole, I really enjoyed it. I did however take quite a while to really get into the writing style and the characters but, once I was over that particular hill, it was all plain sailing...
First we see a glimpse into Marlowe's past, how he got to where he is when the book starts proper. A PI who still lives in the shadow of his infamous homicide detective father, Emmet, although he has now fallen from grace a bit, and gone downhill, since the death of his wife, Marlowe's mother.
Usually a one case man, Marlowe bucks his trend by accepting two case. Both missing persons. The first is the step-daughter of a once famous actress who has gone off the rails since the death of her father. The second is a young boy who has been snatched from his English mother and whisked away to the US. This one is a bit more time sensitive as Ren, the mother, only has limited time and resources...
And so begins a rather interesting and convoluted set of cases. Which meander around and about each other as the book progresses. We witness the young educating the old, and vice versa, with often hilarious results. At times it's almost a farce in some of the antics and the characters are in danger of becoming stereotypes or caricatures. But that line, although skirted, is never crossed.
Marlowe... I am still not sure about him. There's definitely something endearing about him but I am not sure it's enough to actually like him. I do admire him, that goes without saying but he does make some rather dubious decisions. Which I guess makes for an interesting life.
There's definitely a lot going on in this book so I would recommend you dedicate chunks of reading time to it rather than a page here and there. That might just have been a me thing as already mentioned I did struggle initially. That said, once it all clicked, it was a downhill race to the end of the book and a few shocks as it was all resolved.
Hopefully this is the start of a new series as I think Marlowe and me have unfinished business...
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for a review copy of The Goodbye Coast, a novel featuring a current day version of Chandler’s LA based PI, Philip Marlowe.

Film star Kendra James’s husband, Terry, was recently murdered and she wants Marlowe to work for her, not to solve Terry’s murder but to find his 17 year daughter, Cody, who has disappeared. At the same time he is approached by Ren Stewart, an English academic, who is looking for her young son kidnapped by her ex-husband.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Goodbye Coast, which is a hugely entertaining read with lots of action, a complex plot and some funny lines. It is told mostly from Marlowe’s point of view with Cody and Ren taking a turn when necessary.

I have not read any of Raymond Chandler’s novels, so I have nothing to compare this to and will review it on its merits. I like it. For all the violence it is a surprisingly light and bright novel that has a feel good factor and I think that this is down to the characterisation. Marlowe is a smart detective with his own moral code. He’s in favour of justice but doesn’t strictly follow the letter of the law, tough but fair. He’s likeable enough but doesn’t give much away. It’s his father, Emmett, who steals the show. He’s an alcoholic on leave from his job as a homicide detective with LAPD and shows himself as both tough and vulnerable while getting into sticky situations and running his amusing mouth. I’ll leave Cody and Ren for the reader to investigate as both have hidden depths.

The plot is clever. There is misdirection and double cross upon double cross as the good guys tangle with violent, sociopathic gangbangers and that raises the tension exponentially. It never seems to stop with development upon development and multiple twists. The biggest twists of all are the solutions- I would never have guessed them. One is logical, the other takes a bit of swallowing, but the nerve and ingenuity of it more than make up for any lack of credibility.

I have rated The Goodbye Coast at 4* because, while it is a good read that I do not hesitate to recommend, it falls a bit flat in the middle.

4/5 Excellent.

Having never read Raymond Chandler, but a big fan of Joe Ide I read this ARC of Goodby Coast with intrigue.

A reimagining for 2022 of a character set in the 50s. All I can say is that the protagonist is 100% Joe Ide’s Philip Marlowe.

A Slick, fast paced caper, full of humour and loud and vibrant characters, it jumps off the pages as the Isiah Quintabe books do.

There’s a real atmosphere to the book, the gritty and downtown feel is there, and in Marlowe, Ide has a new character to shape and craft,

It’s a fine work, I hope there is more

Philip Marlowe, private detective, is transplanted to modern day in a humorous novel, and he has a full case load. I enjoyed reading this novel and would recommend it highly. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for giving me a copy of the book.

Joe Ide has moved on from his IQ series, now resurrecting Chandler's PI Philip Marlowe for our contemporary times in Los Angeles. Woven into the novel is the troubled relationship that veers continually from anger to love and support that Marlowe has with his father, Emmet, a LAPD legend on leave due to his drinking, trying to drown his loneliness and grief at the loss of his beloved wife, Addie. Philip here is a quiet, alone, and understated figure, well dressed, unhappy at the levels of extreme inequalities of a city plagued by corruption, violence and brutality, and ruthless gangs. There is the glamour of Hollywood, beneath the movie business lustre lies a pit of darkness, full to the brim of a multitude of sins. A reluctant Marlowe finds himself meeting a scheming film star, a woman he is not impressed by, Kendra James, whose husband, 43 year old Terry, was murdered outside her Malibu home.

However, James does not want him to look into the murder, she wants him to locate Terry's teenage daughter, Cody, who has gone missing. Marlowe finds himself taking on another missing person case, this time a 7 year old boy, Jeremy, abducted by his father in England. His British mother, Ren Stewart, an academic and writer, is both desperate and distraught, and willing to do whatever it takes to find her son, such as following the slimmest of leads that end up putting her life in danger. It doesn't take Marlowe long to find Cody, a horror of a girl, unscrupulous, without a conscience, an entitled and privileged teenager who believes the world owes her a living. Believing her life may be in danger, he takes her to stay with Emmet to protect her, as he finds himself plunged into the criminal underbelly of LA, that includes Armenian gangsters and the Russian Mob.

Ide's Philip Marlowe is not Chandler's Marlowe, but he captures his spirit for our modern times, I had to admire his and Emmet's capacity to put up with the ungrateful, odious sociopath that is Cody, Emmet seeking to assuage his inner emptiness by looking for redeeming features in her that are simply not there. Marlowe finds himself having feelings for Ren that are doomed, she only has space in her for her son, her only interest in him is the possibility of him find him. This is a dark and intense crime read, packed with eminently unlikeable characters, self serving and greedy, with ultra dysfunctional families, where betrayal is the norm. We have an engaging and tenacious Marlowe who finds himself constantly in danger as he endeavours to resolve his challenging cases. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.