Once more down those mean streets

Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe is to return in a novel written by John Banville to be published in 2013.  Mr. Banville, 66, is a Booker Prize-winning author who has also written several mysteries under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. The new Marlowe novel, which was authorized by Chandler’s estate, will be billed as a work by Mr. Black. The novel will be set in the 1940s in Chandler’s fictional town of Bay City, Calif.

"I love the challenge of following in the very large footsteps of Raymond Chandler.I began reading Chandler as a teenager, and frequently return to the novels.

"This idea has been germinating for several years and I relish the prospect of setting a book in Marlowe's California, which I always think of in terms of Edward Hopper's paintings. Bay City will have a slightly surreal, or hyper-real, atmosphere that I look forward to creating." John Banville


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