One of the most acclaimed works of crime fiction ever written, The Big Sleep is the first novel featuring Raymond Chandler’s iconic creation Philip Marlowe, hailed as the “quintessential urban private eye” (Los Angeles Times).
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
“Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious.” —Robert B. Parker, The New York Times Book Review
When old man Sternwood, a dying millionaire, hires Philip Marlowe to expose the blackmailer of one of his troublesome daughters, Marlowe finds himself involved with more than simple extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, and seduction are just a few of the complications standing in the way of completing the task at hand. And just as Marlowe feels he’s getting ahold of the situation, he discovers the first body.
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"Chandler's ability to bring a scene to life on the page has few peers. His characters are memorable and characteristic of the era and his analogies are spot on. I recommend this book to anyone unfamiliar with Chandler and place this book on my highly recommended list."
— jamie (5 out of 5 stars)
“Chandler [writes] like a slumming angel and invest[s] the sun-blinded streets of Los Angelos with a romantic presence.”
— Ross Macdonald, New York Times bestselling author“The language used in this book is often vile, at times so filthy that the publishers have been compelled to resort to the dash, a device seldom employed in these unsqueamish days. As a study in depravity, the story is excellent, with Marlowe standing out as almost the only fundamentally decent person in it.”
— New York Times[Chandler]’s the perfect novelist for our times. He takes us into a different world, a world that’s like ours, but isn’t.
— Carolyn See“Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence.
— Ross Macdonald “Raymond Chandler is a star of the first magnitude.[T]he prose rises to heights of unselfconscious eloquence, and we realize with a jolt of excitement that we are in the presence of not a mere action tale teller, but a stylist, a writer with a vision.
— Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Review of BooksRaymond Chandler was one of the finest prose writers of the twentieth century. . . . Age does not wither Chandler’s prose. . . . He wrote like an angel.
— Literary ReviewNobody can write like Chandler on his home turf, not even Faulkner. . . . An original. . . . A great artist.
— The Boston Book Review“Philip Marlowe remains the quintessential urban private eye.
— Los Angeles Times“Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious.
— The New York Times Book ReviewRaymond Chandler is a master.
— The New York Times “[Chandler] wrote as if pain hurt and life mattered.Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) published his first story in 1933 in the pulp magazine Black Mask. By the time he published his first novel, The Big Sleep in 1939, featuring, as did all his major works, the iconic private eye Philip Marlowe, it was clear that he had not only mastered a genre but had set a standard to which others could only aspire. In addition to his short stories, he published only seven novels during his life. He created a body of work that ranks with the best of twentieth-century literature and at his death had established himself as the finest crime writer in America.
Scott Brick, an acclaimed voice artist, screenwriter, and actor, has performed on film, television, and radio. He attended UCLA and spent ten years in a traveling Shakespeare company. Passionate about the spoken word, he has narrated a wide variety of audiobooks. winning won more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards and several of the prestigious Audie Awards. He was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and the Voice of Choice for 2016 by Booklist magazine.