John Banville to Write New Philip Marlowe Novel

Posted on August 19, 2012

Henry Holt and Company has hired John Barnville to write a new Philip Marlowe novel. Marlowe is the hero detective from Raymond Chandler's bestselling novels, which included The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. Henry Holt says the novel will be published in 2013 and will be written under an arrangement with the Chandler estate.

John Banville is Man Booker Prize-winning Irish novelist. He currently writes a crime series under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. In his Marlowe novel, Banville will also bring back policeman Bernie Ohls. The setting for the novel will remain in Bay City, a fictional stand-in for Santa Monica, California. It will be set in the 1940s.

Banville said in a statement, "I love the challenge of following in the very large footsteps of Raymond Chandler. I began reading Chandler as a teenager, and frequently return to the novels. This idea has been germinating for several years and I relish the prospect of setting a book in Marlowe's California, which I always think of in terms of Edward Hopper's paintings. Bay City will have a slightly surreal, or hyper-real, atmosphere that I look forward to creating."

Update: The novel is called The Black-Eyed Blonde.