Trouble Is My Business

1 Review

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  The collection of short stories that I read with the title, Trouble is my business included the title story, red wind, I'll be waiting, goldfish and guns at Cyrano's.

  The hero in Trouble is my business was definitely one of the harder Chandler heroes, less prone to drink and without the weaknesses ... (continue)

  The collection of short stories that I read with the title, Trouble is my business included the title story, red wind, I'll be waiting, goldfish and guns at Cyrano's.

  The hero in Trouble is my business was definitely one of the harder Chandler heroes, less prone to drink and without the weaknesses of some of his others. He treats his employer with contempt and manages to sort his way through murder after murder.

  Red wind, saw the same protagonist, John Dalmas, but softer with a more lyrical first person perspective. This story saw him witness a murder, and help a girl get back the pearls that had been stolen from her. Pearls she thought were real given to her by her dead lover, but turned out to be fake. So Dalmas had a fake pair made, so he could claim the originals had been sold off so she wouldn't realise her dead lover was no good. Very sweet for a hardboiled detective in my book.

  I'll be waiting was a short and different story about a house detective who does a favour for a couple in the hotel that ends up costing him greatly. While normally I'm less fond of the hotel stories this one was very good.

  Goldfish was rather odd, particularly in that the detective went up to Olympia Wa (Where I went to university). It was so odd to see the town through the eyes of a detective in the 30s and see how it was run down even back then.

  Guns at Cyrano's was ok, but my least favourite of the stories. A boxer who took a dive, and a lot of bodies. But without quite as much personality and charm as the others.

  One thing that's interesting about reading the pulp stories as opposed to simply watching their film noir interpretations is how much grittier and realistic the pulp stories are. Here people are doing lots of cocaine. The towns are populated with African Americans and Hispanics. There are Hispanic police men, and honestly there seems to be a lot less prejudice than there is now, or maybe it's because looking at the underbelly of society people tend to hate each other indiscriminately.

  But I am still greatly enjoying these stories.

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  Robot-mel said on Jun 20, 2010 | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
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• English Books
• Paperback 336 Pages
• Edition: New Ed
• ISBN-10: 0140109803
• ISBN-13: 9780140109801
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Pub date: Jul 31, 2008
• Also available as: Mass Market Paperback, Audio CD, Audio Cassette and Unbound

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