The Goodbye Coast
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
In this colorful reinvention of a classic, Philip Marlowe finds himself tangled in two missing persons cases; “Ide has chiseled off the rust while keeping the soul of one of American fiction’s icons” (Dennis Lehane).
The seductive and relentless figure of Raymond Chandler’s detective, Philip Marlowe, is vividly re-imagined in present-day Los Angeles. Here is a city of scheming Malibu actresses, ruthless gang members, virulent inequality, and washed-out police. Acclaimed and award-winning novelist Joe Ide imagines a Marlowe very much of our time: he’s a quiet, lonely, and remarkably capable and confident private detective, though he lives beneath the shadow of his father, a once-decorated LAPD homicide detective, famous throughout the city, who’s given in to drink after the death of Marlowe’s mother.
Marlowe, against his better judgement, accepts two missing person cases, the first a daughter of a faded, tyrannical Hollywood starlet, and the second, a British child stolen from his mother by his father. At the center of The Goodbye Coast is Marlowe’s troubled and confounding relationship with his father, a son who despises yet respects his dad, and a dad who’s unable to hide his bitter disappointment with his grown boy.
Steeped in the richly detailed ethnic neighborhoods of modern LA, Ide’s The Goodbye Coast is a bold recreation that is viciously funny, ingeniously plotted, and surprisingly tender.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The Goodbye Coast pus a fresh spin on a beloved character. Raymond Chandler practically invented the hardboiled detective genre with his 1930s and ’40s series starring private eye Philip Marlowe. In this riveting mystery, Joe Ide—author of the IQ series—reboots the tough-as-nails character and plops him in present-day Los Angeles, where two different mothers have hired Marlowe to track down their missing kids. Ide’s take keeps all the pulp-fiction appeal of the original and adds some fascinating new wrinkles, including Marlowe’s disastrous relationship with his dad, a cantankerous LAPD veteran. Vikas Adam brings just the right amount of streetwise attitude to his narration and nails Ide’s witty one-liners, like “The movie went by like a cement wall taking a walk.” We loved getting lost in this seedy underworld of brutish gangsters, rebellious teens, and sleazy Hollywood types.