The hasty follow-up to “The Big Sleep” is both more Hard Boiled and more fluff. Marlow is grittier; drinking more, freer with the racism and misogyny, he feels even dirtier than before. Along with an amped up Marlow comes some unnecessary prose and even scenes, as if a publisher asked for more of the same but bigger and immediately. The plot itself hold, with a case that constantly seems to be going nowhere suddenly all coming together. Despite the higher page count the characters feel less developed, especially the women. Chandler’s prose is as lovely as ever, which makes the superfluous digressions not a complete waste. While I sound harsh, this is still a very good crime novel, it simply isn’t Chandler’s best effort.