Philip Marlowe is hired to recover a lost coin for a crotchety widow. She suspects her daughter-in-law and wants Marlowe to arrange for her daughter-in-law to divorce her son.

Marlowe, of course, encounters a ton of obstacles and a mounting body count. In addition, to the official side of the business, he suspects something is really wrong with the old woman’s secretary, who is being mistreated.

The case is somewhat average fare. It’s by no means a bad story but it’s also not The Big Sleep and it’s not Farewell, My Lovely. It has its moments such as when Marlowe is justifying non-cooperation with the police on the basis of a case they mishandled through corruption, and then later he admits the story was made up and later on, says maybe it wasn’t. However, the characters aren’t as good and the dialogue isn’t either. In addition to this, there are few less threads that are left hanging and there are a few more, we really don’t care about.

On the positive side Marlowe’s noble actions towards the secretary and the purity of his motives really live up to his Knight in Tarnished Armor Rep. In the end, it’s a great story but not a classic.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5.0

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