The Marble Orchard: A Novel Featuring the Black Mask Boys : Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner - Hardcover

Nolan, William F.

3.69

29 ratings by Goodreads

9780312140113: The Marble Orchard: A Novel Featuring the Black Mask Boys : Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312140118 ISBN 13: 9780312140113

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1996

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Mystery fiction's legendary trio, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Erle Stanley Gardner, are back as amateur detectives, following their dynamic, critically acclaimed debut in The Black Mask Murders. Here they interact in a complex, colorful, and ultimately dangerous adventure, a richly textured thriller that also celebrates the joys of love and marriage between Chandler and his exceptional wife, Cissy.
As narrated by Chandler, the adventure begins in East Los Angeles with the discovery of what is apparently the ritual suicide of Cissy's former husband in a Chinese cemetery. Action moves swiftly from the coastal splendors of the Hearst castle, to the abandoned canals of Venice by the Sea, to an ornate hotel on Coronado Island, to the rococo Victorian mansions of Bunker Hill.
The characters are equally diverse: a mysterious screen star known to millions as the Vampire Queen, a concert pianist who discovers surprising romance, an ex-stage actor with a penchant for using his fists, a missing sister who prefers to stay missing, and a pair of muscle-bound punks who don't balk at kidnapping and murder.

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From Booklist:

The Black Mask boys are back, and that's a cause for celebration. Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner, introduced as detectives in Nolan's Black Mask Murders (1994), track down the murderer of Chandler's wife's first husband, Julian, who has apparently committed ritual suicide in a Chinese cemetery. Cissy Chandler, not buying the suicide story, puts her husband on the case. Chandler follows Julian's trail to horror-movie actress Carmilla Blastok, who leads the writerly sleuth to a thug named Enright, who may have killed Carmilla's sister. When Chandler gets in over his head, he calls his Black Mask cronies for help. Along the way, Charlie Chaplin, William Randolph Hearst, and Orson Welles also make cameo appearances. Nolan has obviously researched the Hollywood of the 1930s thoroughly; his backgrounds are always convincing, even when you don't believe the foreground for a minute. Entertaining for nostalgia buffs. George Needham

From Library Journal:

Nolan's Black Mask Boys-Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner-undertake their second amateur investigation. The apparent suicide of Cissy Chandler's former husband entails visits to East L.A., Hearst Castle, and Venice-by-the-Sea. Various famous people make appearances. Especially good for fans of 1930s historical fiction.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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