{"id":12404,"date":"2019-05-01T20:04:52","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T00:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12404"},"modified":"2019-05-01T20:04:52","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T00:04:52","slug":"only-to-sleep-by-lawrence-osborne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12404","title":{"rendered":"‘Only to sleep,’ by Lawrence Osborne"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Raymond Chandler estate<\/strong> has asked three authors (Robert B. Parker, Benjamin Black, and now Lawrence Osborne) in recent years to write continuation novels about classic private eye Philip Marlowe. Only to Sleep<\/a><\/em> is the third and most recent, written by Osborne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is set in 1988, and the investigator is now 72 years old, rusticating in a hotel in Baha, California. When two insurance company representatives show up and ask him to go to Mexico and make some inquiries for them, he finds himself interested. He\u2019s bored, and doesn\u2019t really care much if the job gets dangerous (which they assure him it will not).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He sets out on the trail of Donald Zinn, an American\nbusinessman who was found murdered on a beach \u2013 and very quickly cremated. The\ncompany paid out his wife\u2019s insurance claim, but they\u2019re suspicious. The hunt\nleads to that wife, a young and beautiful woman who fascinates Marlowe. He soon\nbecomes certain that the man she\u2019s traveling with is in fact Zinn, who faked\nhis death. But Marlowe\u2019s actions after finding them are\u2026 ambivalent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wasn\u2019t greatly impressed by Only to Di<\/em>e. There\u2019s some good writing here, but the story \u2013 like its hero \u2013 has weak legs. Raymond Chandler\u2019s famous advice on plotting was, \u201cWhen in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns.\u201d That policy doesn\u2019t work very well when your hero is in his seventies, though. If tough guys with guns show up too often, the show will pretty much be over. So other ways have to be found to pass the time. And although Marlowe\u2019s meditations on life are one of the pleasures of a Chandler novel, they can\u2019t carry a whole book \u2013 especially in the hard-boiled genre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of that, a major plot point involves Marlowe doing something that strongly violates his private eye code (as I understand it). He mitigates that choice through later actions, but the whole business diminished him for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I don\u2019t highly recommend Only to Sleep<\/em>. I finished it, so it didn\u2019t insult my intelligence, but it wasn\u2019t what I hoped for. Cautions for language and adult themes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Raymond Chandler estate has asked three authors (Robert B. Parker, Benjamin Black, and now Lawrence Osborne) in recent years to write continuation novels about classic private eye Philip Marlowe. Only to Sleep is the third and most recent, written by Osborne. The book is set in 1988, and the investigator is now 72 years … Continue reading ‘Only to sleep,’ by Lawrence Osborne<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[1618,2100,2202],"class_list":["post-12404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-lawrence-osborne","tag-only-to-sleep","tag-philip-marlowe"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}