Somebody's Sister

Derek Marlowe (1938-1996) turns to crime fiction with his sixth book, Somebody's Sister. The story is a classic private eye novel and draws on too many of the genre's most cliched elements — a weary and distant PI, the suspicious death of a young woman, a tour of seedy San Francisco bars, etc. Marlowe remains a very good writer, but overall the story feels like too much of a Raymond Chandler imitation.