Only to Sleep
Author: Lawrence Osborne
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Date of Publication: July 24, 2018
Pages: 272
Only to Sleep is one of six novels nominated for the 2019 Best Mystery Novel Edgar Award. The other five are: The Liar's Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard, House Witness by Mike Lawson, Down to the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley and A Treacherous Curse by Deanna Raybourne. This is the final book of the six which I have reviewed.
Lawrence Osborne is only the third author asked by the Raymond Chandler estate to write a new Philip Marlowe novel. The other two were John Banville and Robert B. Parker. In the epilogue to the book the author states that he "tried to stay faithful to the bewilderingly dreamlike plots of Chandler because it has always seemed to me that they incarnate the qualities of both fairy tale and nightmare to which he aspired." Further, Osborne notes that Chandler himself wrote that he saw Marlowe "always in a lonely street, in lonely rooms, puzzled but never quite defeated." Osborne has certainly not strayed from those two tenets in Only to Sleep. It is an atmospheric novel, almost a quest. The endpoint of the story is always moving, Marlowe's ultimate goal remains elusive.
The basic plot is basically quite simple. Ageless Marlowe, retired and living in Mexico, agrees to come out of retirement and investigate a suspicious drowning. The insurance company has already paid out a large life insurance claim, but wants to make sure they are not being scammed. The drowning victim, an elderly real estate developer from Southern California with large outstanding debt, washed up on a beach in Mexico. His body was identified by his young widow and then was quickly cremated. The insurance company is not comfortable with all of this.
Marlowe begins by visiting the widow, a young Mexican who met her husband when she was a cocktail waitress in a bar in a Mexican beach resort. Marlowe then visits the site of the drowning and follows a circuitous trail of clues.
The writing in Only to Sleep is superb. While being recruited by the insurance company, Marlowe ruminates:
"The drinks arrived. I hadn't worked in ten years and I had retired too late as it was. In those final days, I felt I had run out of courage rather than energy. Seventy-two isn't a a bad age, but sixty-two is too old to be working. You are just impersonating the man you used to be. Retirement had seemed like the best way not to die, but the adrenaline had gone the day I threw in the towel and it never returned. You have your books and your movies, your daydreams and your moments in the sun, but none of those can save you any more than irony can."
Describing the guests at a high society garden party:
"They had the high-wire arrogance of the intoxicated."
Dining with one of his aging investigators, Marlowe describes the scene:
"The burgers came with paper tubs of coleslaw, pickles, and cheese fries. In the green light we looked like two aging chimps eating scraps in a cave."
Marlowe's (Osborne's) description of a man he comes across:
"He was a desert gnome made of wire and thorns, a human tumbleweed in a plaid shirt, with a can of tobacco and a pipe laid in the sand beside him."
The quality of the writing and the ringing clarity of the descriptions of everything from the characters to the setting keep the reader turning the pages even when the plot lags a bit. Staying true to the "bewilderingly dreamlike plots" of Raymond Chandler makes the pace of this almost glacial in spots. The splendid writing, however, saves the day.
Lawrence Osborne is only the third author asked by the Raymond Chandler estate to write a new Philip Marlowe novel. The other two were John Banville and Robert B. Parker. In the epilogue to the book the author states that he "tried to stay faithful to the bewilderingly dreamlike plots of Chandler because it has always seemed to me that they incarnate the qualities of both fairy tale and nightmare to which he aspired." Further, Osborne notes that Chandler himself wrote that he saw Marlowe "always in a lonely street, in lonely rooms, puzzled but never quite defeated." Osborne has certainly not strayed from those two tenets in Only to Sleep. It is an atmospheric novel, almost a quest. The endpoint of the story is always moving, Marlowe's ultimate goal remains elusive.
The basic plot is basically quite simple. Ageless Marlowe, retired and living in Mexico, agrees to come out of retirement and investigate a suspicious drowning. The insurance company has already paid out a large life insurance claim, but wants to make sure they are not being scammed. The drowning victim, an elderly real estate developer from Southern California with large outstanding debt, washed up on a beach in Mexico. His body was identified by his young widow and then was quickly cremated. The insurance company is not comfortable with all of this.
Marlowe begins by visiting the widow, a young Mexican who met her husband when she was a cocktail waitress in a bar in a Mexican beach resort. Marlowe then visits the site of the drowning and follows a circuitous trail of clues.
The writing in Only to Sleep is superb. While being recruited by the insurance company, Marlowe ruminates:
"The drinks arrived. I hadn't worked in ten years and I had retired too late as it was. In those final days, I felt I had run out of courage rather than energy. Seventy-two isn't a a bad age, but sixty-two is too old to be working. You are just impersonating the man you used to be. Retirement had seemed like the best way not to die, but the adrenaline had gone the day I threw in the towel and it never returned. You have your books and your movies, your daydreams and your moments in the sun, but none of those can save you any more than irony can."
Describing the guests at a high society garden party:
"They had the high-wire arrogance of the intoxicated."
Dining with one of his aging investigators, Marlowe describes the scene:
"The burgers came with paper tubs of coleslaw, pickles, and cheese fries. In the green light we looked like two aging chimps eating scraps in a cave."
Marlowe's (Osborne's) description of a man he comes across:
"He was a desert gnome made of wire and thorns, a human tumbleweed in a plaid shirt, with a can of tobacco and a pipe laid in the sand beside him."
The quality of the writing and the ringing clarity of the descriptions of everything from the characters to the setting keep the reader turning the pages even when the plot lags a bit. Staying true to the "bewilderingly dreamlike plots" of Raymond Chandler makes the pace of this almost glacial in spots. The splendid writing, however, saves the day.
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