Last week saw the 50th anniversary of the death of Raymond Chandler. One of the true greats of crime writing. He influenced a whole new genre of writing. His hard drinking, wise cracking private eye Philip Marlowe, who enjoys chess as much as he does solving crimes is often copied but never equalled.
Chandler had an amazing skill for the one liners. Here's just a small selection from some of his books.
From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away
'She's dark and lovely and passionate. And very, very kind.'
'And exclusive as a mailbox,' I said.
The big foreign car drove itself, but I held the wheel for the sake of appearances.
I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.
The man was literary gold.
AND YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN THAT GOLD!!!!
Five of Chandler’s novels have been republished by Hamish Hamilton with original covers. The kind and wise and nice smelling people at Penguin have kindly given us a set of these books to give away in a competition.
So here's the competition.....
It ain't easy, because we don't just want anyone to win this prize. You've got to really really want it. OK?
here are anagrams of 7 classic crime writers. Try and unravel these;
1. ALL RATFINKS
2. CARRY ON HOUND TALE
3. RANDOM STEWARD
4. CHEMISTS HERE
5. ELIJAH SPOONS
6. RENEW BALLCOCK
7. ADORED Y-FRONTS
A couple I didn't use were
SOMEONE'S GINGER = GEORGES SIMENON
A JERSEY MOLL = JAMES ELLROY
Anyway, once you have the 7 authors, all you have to do is re-arrange the first letters of their christian names to come up with a fictional detective.
Email this to simonkey68@msn.com with your name and contact details.
DO NOT PUT THE ANSWER ON THE BLOG!!
The competition will end on Friday May 22nd, on which day we will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of the answers to the anagrams!
This will be going out on our newsletter and on the facebook group too, but if you know someone who may like to win these great books, please let them know.
Enjoy.
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