Book Review: THE GOODBYE COAST by Joe Ide

THE GOODBYE COAST by Joe Ide (Mulholland Books, February 2022)  Hardcover, 272 pages.  ISBN # 0316459275 / 9780316459273 

Summary on the Goodreads website . . . . .  

 

Raymond Chandler's iconic detective, Philip Marlowe, gets a dramatic and colorful reinvention at the hands of award-winning novelist Joe Ide

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 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. Together, they will realize that one of their clients may be responsible for murder of her own husband, a washed-up director in debt to Albanian and Russian gangsters, and that the client’s trouble-making daughter may not be what she seems.

 

Steeped in the richly detailed ethnic neighborhoods of modern LA, Ide’s COAST is a bold recreation that is viciously funny, ingeniously plotted, and surprisingly tender.  

My Four-Star Review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

    Joe Ide, an excellent crime fiction novelist, takes Raymond Chandler's iconic detective Philip Marlowe and places him in current-day Los Angeles. Rather than write a straight-up homage or attempt to mimic the characteristics of Chandler's writing and/or Chandler's hero, Ide has scripted a compelling crime story set in the familiar Hollywood/Los Angeles surroundings that would rank as a first-rate effort without the Marlowe connection. I'm not sure if Ide is moving on from the outstanding IQ novels to more tales of Marlowe. I'd welcome both, although I believe the IQ novels are better. 

    "There are no 'classics' of crime and detection. Within it's frame of reference, which is the only way it should be judged, a classic is a piece of writing which exhausts the possibilities of its form and can never be surpassed. No story or novel of mystery has done that yet." . . . Raymond Chandler, 1945

    Ide begins his acknowledgments in the back of the book with that quote, and goes on to say "no one ever came closer than Chandler. My career, and so many others, were borne from his talent." 

     I couldn't agree more. I first discovered detective fiction and Raymond Chandler's works during college, and decades later his novels and Philip Marlowe have become the gold standard for me. I think if Ide had tried too hard to write like Chandler I would have been disappointed.

     I have a feeling he deliberately made many of the changes in order to avoid those direct comparisons, and rightly so. Even without the first person narration and metaphors that Marlowe is known for, Ide has still managed to capture the spirit and atmosphere of the character. His additions, like having Marlowe get assistance from his troubled father ( a legendary L.A. cop) and sharing the point of view of several characters, add layers to Marlowe that were not there before. 

     This is an often funny, intelligent and keenly plotted novel of Hollywood excess, greed, and betrayal that I believe Chandler would have great respect for.