Raymond Chandler: A Biography

(Paperback)

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A fascinating biography of one of our greatest crime authors giving unique insights into Chandler's writing, his friendships with Ian Fleming and Somerset Maugham, and his relationship with his wife and other women Born in Nabraska of Irish Quaker parents, educated at Dulwich College, and in the `mean streets' of Los Angeles about which he wrote, Raymond Chandler-writer, oil executive, poet, recluse, charmer, gentlman, drunk-was full of contradictions as his origins. His seven Philip Marlowe stories had sold 5 million copies by the time of his death in1059. Since the first authorised biography 20 years ago, much new material can be revealed about the man and his life. For this major new biography, Tom Hiney has had some access to unseen personal papers, as well as previously unrecorded reminiscences by those who knew him well and he vividly evokes the strange early years, brings alive the danerous glamour of the Hollywood era, and puts Chandler`s writing in the context of the crime and corruption in Prohibition LA. He gives illuminating details of friendships with Ian Fleming, Somerset Maugham, the Spenders, Alfred Hitchcock and fully records for the first time his relationship with Cissy, his wife of 30 years, 17 years his senior, and his paradoxical relations with other women.

Reviews

Sympathetic and gripping...After reading this fine biography, I could hardly wait to take yet another trip down those mean streets with the greatest private dick of them all -- Charles Spencer * Sunday Telegraph *
Carefully researched, enjoyable and enlightening...This is a book that should be read by everyone who admires fiction which has an individual voice, shines a torch into dark corners of the world and entertains the audience -- John Mortimer * Mail on Sunday *
Tom Hiney's biography does what any literary biography should do. It sends you back to the work -- John Harvey * Independent *
Reading this refreshing book, even for anyone not already an addict of Chandler novels...you end up mighty glad the man lived -- Frances Fyfield * Express *

Author Bio

Born in 1970, Tom Hiney is the author of an acclaimed biography of Raymond Chandler and On the Missionary Trail. He worked as a journalist in London before moving to South Africa where he now lives with his wife and son.