POODLE SPRINGS
by Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker
Putnam; 268 pages; $18.95
Raymond Chandler influenced the American detective novel so strongly that even his imitators have imitators. Among the best of the second-generation models is Robert B. Parker, 57, whose private investigator, Spenser, shares Philip Marlowe's gruff chivalry and, like Chandler's "Galahad of the gutter," bears the surname of an Elizabethan literary figure.
So it is not surprising that Parker was hired to complete Poodle Springs, a Marlowe caper unfinished when the author died in 1959. Complete is an understatement. Only the first four chapters (scenes really) belong to the...
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