Wednesday Book Club: The Simple Art of Murder
This week’s selection: The Simple Art of Murder (1950) by Raymond Chandler.
In brief: Strangely enough, Chandler’s vision of the hard-boiled private eye comes off more lucidly in his literary criticism than in the detective stories for which he is known. His reluctance to make his puzzles too neat sometimes renders his mysteries without any puzzle at all, leaving it up to his morally conflicted characters to carry the day. Often they do, but not always.
(The Wednesday Book Club is an ongoing initiative of mine to write a book review every week. I invite you to peruse the index. For more on The Simple Art of Murder, keep reading below.)
