Phillip Marlowe Returns in THE GOODBYE COAST by Joe Ide!

I’m a Phillip Marlowe fan.  I’ve read the original novels by Raymond Chandler.  I read Robert B. Parker’s Marlowe novels.  In movies, I’ve seen Marlowe played by Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell, Robert Montgomery, James Garner, Elliott Gould and Robert Mitchum.

What I haven’t read is the Phillip Marlowe novel The Goodbye Coast by Joe Ide. Of course it won’t be released until February 1, 2022.  Here’s the synopsis…

Raymond Chandler’s iconic detective, Philip Marlowe, gets a dramatic and colorful reinvention at the hands of award-winning novelist Joe Ide

The seductive and relentless figure of Raymond Chandler’s detective, Philip Marlowe, is vividly re-imagined in present-day Los Angeles. Here is a city of scheming Malibu actresses, ruthless gang members, virulent inequality, and washed-out police. Acclaimed and award-winning novelist Joe Ide imagines a Marlowe very much of our time: he’s a quiet, lonely, and remarkably capable and confident private detective, though he lives beneath the shadow of his father, a once-decorated LAPD homicide detective, famous throughout the city, who’s given in to drink after the death of Marlowe’s mother.

Marlowe, against his better judgement, accepts two missing person cases, the first a daughter of a faded, tyrannical Hollywood starlet, and the second, a British child stolen from his mother by his father. At the center of The Goodbye Coast is Marlowe’s troubled and confounding relationship with his father, a son who despises yet respects his dad, and a dad who’s unable to hide his bitter disappointment with his grown boy.

Steeped in the richly detailed ethnic neighborhoods of modern LA, Ide’s The Goodbye Coast is a bold recreation that is viciously funny, ingeniously plotted, and surprisingly tender.

I like the sound of The Goodbye Coast.  I even like the fact that they’re putting Marlowe in current times, which surprises me.  Joe Ide is a writer of note.  I think I’m going to have to give this one a go.