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The Big Sleep

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The Big Sleep

By: Raymond Chandler, Ian Rankin
Narrated by: Scott Brick
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

'I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.'

Los Angeles Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wheelchair-bound General Sternwood to discover who is blackmailing him. A broken, weary old man, Sternwood just wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. However, with Sternwood's two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets, Marlowe's got his work cut out. And that's before he stumbles over the first corpse.

The Big Sleep is Raymond Chandler's first novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe.

'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times

'Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph

'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times

'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess

©2020 Raymond Chandler (P)2020 Penguin Audio Classics Modern Detectives Mystery Private Investigators Suspense Thriller & Suspense Detective Fiction

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All stars
Most relevant  
This audible book has everything: cynicism, sarcasm, menace, sadness, heroics, well observed description, laugh out loud moments, understandable plot, and is beautifully narrated. So much better than most of the modern novels.

Wonderful classic

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the ultimate. The narration really does add value and bring the story into being. Could not recommend more 👍

Excellent detective noire story. Quite possibly

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Brilliant as usual it's unfortunate that R. C. Is no longer with us sad RIP

Excellent

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Upon proof-reading The Big Sleep, Alfred Clopf deleted a double-negative Harry Jones says to Marlowe, Clopf forgetting the exception to rule "twice wrong make not one right". Now a listener ascribe implied sensorship to this production. "When I split the infinitive it stays" Chandler replied.

It Never Ends

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A good story that still holds up today. The narrator isn’t the best at distinguishing character voices, so it can be a bit confusing when there are more than two people in a scene.

Pretty damn good

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The story is class. The only thing bad I can say about it is what's already been said. It's rubbish they cut out the f word repeatedly in 1 chapter. So the narrator has a great presence but sometimes it's hard to distinguish between characters, as the voices are often very simliar,; even between men and women.

Classic noir

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See above, I don’t like to waste words. Blubber, pants, prosthetic, harmonica, haemolytic. I needed 15 words.

The turn of phrase, such great lines. Ridiculous plot, really, but still great.

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A classic story and prime example of the genre. Excellent narration, but it was annoying when the F word was muted out, and the special introduction by the guest author wasn’t included with this audiobook, which was odd.

A Classic

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Given the intricate plot and host of characters, this is a tad difficult to follow in audio format and I look forward to giving the print version and film adaptation a whirl. I still enjoyed it overall though and will look to see how Marlowe gets on in his following capers.

Hard boiled as it gets

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I liked everything, especially the occasional music and the brilliantly dated presentation- it took me right back highly recommended don’t miss this I had no idea there was a co- author and I have read all the rebus books.

This reading has everything

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