Denise Mina (2023) The Second Murderer.

Award-winning Scottish author, Denise Mina, gets to play gumshoe in a Philip Marlowe Mystery. She’s a hired hand, in the same way that Marlowe’s a hired hound.

Marlowe’s a man’s man that likes to drink and have a dame on his arm. He takes all kinds of cases but he’s got a code and a line that won’t be crossed. He’ll do the right thing and money be damned.

A heatwave in LA makes everybody cranky. But that’s not what’s bothering Marlowe. Something about The Pasto Pete case doesn’t sit right with him. It was open and shut. Too tight. That’s why he’s sitting at his desk and drinking at ten-thirty a.m.

The phone goes. He’s down on his luck and there’s big numbers involved. $1000 bucks bonus if he can find twenty-two- year old Chrissie Montgomery. The Montgomerys came over in the Mayflower and own much of LA. They’re royalty and stinking rich. She’s an heiress that disappeared.

Money is the problem but isn’t the problem. Marlowe doesn’t like to be owned. He’s willing to work for them at his usual rate and expenses. But he can always walk. He wants to hear Chrissie Montgomery’s side of the story.

But there’s another P.I. on the case, Anne Riordan. She’s quite a dame. He’d like to get lip tight to his rival. She’s not exactly pushing him away.

I’ve not read a Philip Marlowe mystery. The closest I’ve come is watching Humphrey Bogard in The Big Sleep, reading Hudsonmoon doing a pastiche of the gumshoe on ABCtales and reading Ewan Lawrie’s The Picture Ranch: A Micawer Fisher P.I. novel.

I wasn’t ready for another retelling of a telling.  But I was sucker punched and Mina just drew me in. Famously, Marlowe’s novels didn’t really need to make sense. All the ts didn’t need to be teed. All the i s didn’t need to be lined up to be shot down.

Characters, including the villains, especially the villains had to be colourful, big and bold. Mina being a Glaswegian knows that money goes back to money. Crime doesn’t pay unless you’re rich enough own the land and the people on the land. The Second Murderer is an acknowledgement of that during The Great Depression. Marlowe is a poke in the eye. A contemporary reminder even the obscenely rich can’t buy everybody and everything. Every man may have his price but this P.I.’s soul is not for sale.   

Well, not really, until you look at the book’s credits. 1 agent. 1 Editor. 3 Editorial. 1 Copy-editor. 1 Proofreader.  2 Managerial Editorial. 1 Audio. 6 Contracts. 8 Design. 2 Digital. 2 Finance. 1 Marketing. 2 Production. 1 Inventory. 2 Publicity. 18 Sales. 1 Operations. 6 Rights.

It seems small. One wee author (soon to be dispensed with when AI gets to grip with PI): Denise Mina. Read on.

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