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

This historical novel is set in Southern California of the 1930s and uses real and fictional characters for its murder mystery. Raymond Chandler is the narrator. The `Afterword' explains the rationale of the book, inspired by real-life agency reports. [Did he read any?] Chapter 1 reviews the mysterious death of Thelma Todd, who may have said "no" after too many "yeses". Chandler wrote stories about crime and detection, not a "socially significant" novel. The story begins with the death of Julian Pascal, Chandler's wife's ex-husband. An apparent suicide in a cemetery. [There is a short and incomplete summary of Chandler's life.] Chandler identified Pascal's body, and explained why he doubted a suicide (Chapter 2). So Chandler starts an investigation into Pascal's death, like a classic pulp fiction story that proves the police theory was wrong. Erle Stanley Gardner, the practical realist, wonders about the miles per gallon for Chandler's Duesenberg "one of the finest automobiles in the world" (p.21). Events occur as the story moves on. A woman in a white limousine is seen at Pascal's burial. We meet real and fictional people in this novel. A woman hires Chandler to find her little sister. Chandler gets Hammett for this search. A "ghost" tells Chandler it was murder! They visit various places on their quest for the facts. These are described quickly. Some secrets are uncovered by the investigation. Chandler finds the missing little sister. Trouble follows this business. In Chapter 17 we get the facts behind the mystery. The little sister meets Chandler and tells her story. There is a secretive night visit where they find another body, and the little sister (Chapter 20). When they find a second body Chandler solves the murders in a surprise ending. The last chapter ends the story. [We learn why it is good business to get your money up front.] I don't know what purpose Nolan had in this portrayal of Chandler. Chandler had served in the front-line trenches of the Great War, unlike Hammett or Gardner. That was about twenty years earlier than this story.