If you know have ever read a book by R.B. Parker you will find yourself in a familiar environment in this book. Parker sets himself a brave task in writing a sequel to Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep" and succeeds in pulling it off superbly. Parker is one of the rare modern writers who still believe that characters can have principles, and live by them even in extreme circumstances. Although this is not Parker's best work, I still recommend this book in which, in my opinion, Parker surpasses one of the legends of detective fition, Raymond Chandler.

a little background is in order (as I understand it): the heirs of Chandler approached Parker to finish the Poodle Springs manuscript, and part of the deal was that he had to write one more Marlowe story. 'Dream' is that one more. The job was almost impossible to begin with (Chandler's drinking had taken the edge off his talent by that time, and the Poodle manuscript got off on the wrong foot to boot), the Chandler fans ripped it for not being up to Chandler's prime (which even Chandler himself wasn't, towards the end), the Parker fans ripped it for not being true Spencer, and Parker felt the strain of wearing another man's shoes. So by the time he got to this one, my guess is, his heart wasn't in it. He's said he'll never do another Marlowe book. That said, it's still good to have Marlowe back, cracking wise and cruising the mean streets again. I liked it better than Chandler's "The Pencil", and better than some of the Spencer books! I just wish Parker would reconsider, and do another Marlowe book without the pressures and constraints of a contract. Marlowe, like Sherlock, is a detective who deserves to live on after his progenitor, but the return of L.A.'s hard-boiled prose-poet is, perchance, just a dream.

Robert B. Parker comes the closest to the attitude of Phillip Marlowe. Stuart Kaminsky writes his Toby Peters stories more for laughs. Andrew Bergman (The Big Kiss-Off of 1944) had flashes where he nailed the speech, but was more in keeping with Spillane overall. William Nolan (The Marble Orchard) copies some of the dialogue- and I do mean copies- in his enjoyable Chandlerian mystery. And there are others, myriad others. But none of them get it quite right.

Neither does Parker, but he comes the closest. He matches the world-weariness, the cynicism and the reluctant romanticism, finding the knight in tarnished armor that is Marlowe. Yes, he very nearly matches the attitude. But he falls short with the style.

Chandler nearly ruined literature for me, because everything about every line of his writing'- the dialogue, the descriptions, the societal observations'- is so incredibly entertaining. Nothing can meet its rarified level. So I try to make due with 'close-enoughs.' When I finish a Chandler novel, I am depressed it came to an end; when I closed Parker's Perchance To Dream, it elicited a 'That's all there is?'

In P2D, the narrative is much too straightforward. The villain was clear from the first quarter of the book and there were few mysteries to solve. No convoluted Black Mask motives, no people impersonating other people. Marlowe doesn't even get sapped until distressingly late in the story. There is only one real subplot; then that ties in with the other so they can both be too-neatly wrapped up. It becomes clear what Marlowe must do and he sets out to do it. Then, very abruptly, the novel is over. It is strenuous but not complex. There is no last minute twist because the story followed a Spenser-like plot; it more resembles the structure of the first Lethal Weapon movie than it does that of The Big Sleep.

And as 50 years have passed between the publishing of the original novel and this one, some subtlety has been forsaken. Parker shows welcome restraint given the subject matter, but Carmen's decadence seemed in Chandler's novel somehow exotic and vague. In P2D, as postmodern psychology and sensibilities are applied, it seems cold and open and dirty.

Still, there is a lot that is great in this book. The flashbacks and tips-of-the-hat to the original novel come off better than they might have. We root for Marlowe and hiss the villain, as we should. Parker has penned an abundance of juicy wisecracks and has figured out how to end his chapters in the bittersweet tone much like Chandler accomplished. And the story, despite what I said above, is furiously-paced and viscerally entertaining. It just isn't Chandler.

Perchance To Dream is a good novel; but when someone slaps the words 'Sequel to The Big Sleep' on the cover of anything it had better be blackjack-to-the-head *great*. The fault isn't really Parker's' he came close, and his was a nigh-impossible task. After all, who can be as great as Raymond Chandler?

P.S. Poodle Springs was a more accurate tribute, if a less actionful read.

3-and-a-half stars. There is a Chinese curse that states "May you live in interesting times." So to say The Marble Orchard is an interesting book may be interpreted as a good or a bad thing. And there are good and bad elements to Mr. Nolan's work.
The plot involves Raymond Chandler seeking down the killer of his wife Cissy's first husband, even though all the evidence points to suicide. Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner, three thugs and an actress specializing in vampiric roles all play parts in the not-bad mystery.
One of the interesting (and unsuccessful) things about TMO is that it is decidedly not hard-boiled. Which may be a valid take on the premise. After all, the authors who wrote the stories were very different from their creations- educated, generally refined men. But this is a fanciful take on the era anyway, so why not go the extra step, I thought? Most of the people were very polite in this novel; its early sections read like one of the English school of mysteries that Chandler disliked and so vigorously deconstructed in The Simple Art of Murder.
But I read on, and at some point, things subtly shifted for the darker and better, and made me realize that the story structure was skillfully similar, even if the trappings were more urbane: the joes and janes peopling the book got nastier, Chandler got sapped and awakened doped (in a scene very like Farewell, My Lovely); Hammett pulled a gun on some thugs; a blackmail plot surfaced; and duplicitous motives appeared out of what had been to that point a disappointingly linear plot. The resolution was as contrived as any good Black Mask novel should be. Not all that plausible, but possible, and entertaining.
Another great thing is how Nolan plays with the way that Chandler and Philip Marlowe *were* alike: a romantic core which appears late in the novel beneath their crust of cynicism. Also, the camaraderie portrayed between Hammett, Chandler and Gardner is a big plus, even if it was entirely manufactured.
The bad things about the novel end up being very few, but they are harmful. Like many modern writers, Nolan seems embarrassed at the lack of political correctness in the original Black Mask stories he seeks to bring to mind. So he creates characters and subplots which advance the story not a whit and seem to exist only to administer some ethereal type of social justice. This treacle was applied, I am sure, with the best of intentions, but garnered the worst of results, coming off as phony, preachy and altogether out-of-place.
Also, the non-stop factoids are interesting for history and trivia buffs to a point, but Nolan goes too far- a litany of what Hammett read as he began his writing career is unnecessary, dull and obvious. The history of cities is again mildly interesting but superfluous; Chandler painted a better picture of SoCal towns with two snotty comments than do the encyclopedic entries of this novel. And, surprisingly, the Chaplin, Welles, Hearst and Temple cameos actually distract from the atmosphere, as they have no relevancy to the plot whatsoever and instead remind us that what we are reading is not historical at all.
Still, Mr. Nolan has succeeded in writing a very well-crafted novel that held my interest despite being nothing like what I expected- not easy to do. And this Black Mask fan thanks him sincerely for keeping an era and a genre, if not exactly a style, alive and kicking.

The gimmick (Gardner, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler solving a real mystery together) is entertaining enough, and Nolan eventually builds a enough of a plot to keep most readers going, but I must say I found the book a big disappointment. Despite the little lectures on California missions, the changing editorship of Black Mask magazine, and so forth -- and the pointless cameo appearance of cardboard cutouts labeled Mae West, John Barrymore, etc -- there is no sense at all of life in the '30s. At first I thought the flatfooted style was meant to be a comment on narrator Erle Stanley Gardner's writing, but at his worst Gardner wasn't this banal, cliche-ridden and tautological (again and again, a character's speech will be tagged with a clause summarizing its contents or explaining its already-obvious intention.) But okay, we don't always look for any kind of style in a certain kind of whodunit, and Nolan does deliver a decent mystery. What I couldn't stand -- I wouldn't even have finished the book if I hadn't been stuck in a hotel room with nothing else -- was the constant stream of anachronistic language. The whole point of this entertainment is that it takes place in the '30s, but again and again, the stock phraseology comes from the '70s or later. The Bing Crosbyesque character is "laid-back", someone keeps a "low profile", a celebrity funeral is a "media event" attended by "death freaks." Once would be an irritating but forgiveable slip-up, but when it keeps happening page after page, the carelessness of it becomes downright insulting.

In the series' third outing Nolan once again hits one out of the park, successfully evoking the spirit of bygone Hollywood glamor. Once again we have the Black Mask boys chewing up the scenery amid spectacular movie sets, Spanish-era estates and a heavy who will strongly remind them of Bing Crosby. But hidden amongst all this is a surprise: the story of an authentic California life. Erle Gardner of Perry Mason fame was born in Oroville, spent a year at Palo Alto High (Paly), defended the rights of Chinese in Oxnard and later moved to Ventura and then Hollywood. As a westerner at that time, Gardner was a bit less sophisticated than his counterparts Hammett and Chandler who hailed from the east coast and England respectively. At a 1997 mystery seminar I heard author Nolan wondering aloud just how to write a novel in the Gardner style, which in many ways is an absence of style really. Nolan needn't have worried. He pulls off this story about the return of a lost love just fine and, anyway, apart from the occasional special effect, his style matches that of only one writer anyway: Nolan. As it should be. It's true that the old saw "show me instead of telling me" can sometimes be applied, but Nolan has a lot of ground to cover and overall does so quite well.