Last Sunday, the LA Times ran an intriguing piece on African-American private eye Samuel Marlowe. The story suggests that Marlowe had ties to Raymond Chandler (as well as to Dashiell Hammett). With the release of my Raymond Chandler/Sherlock Holmes novel, The Final Page of Baker Street, less than a month away, I submitted the following self-promoting letter to the Times: Editor: Regarding the origin of fictional PI Marlowes name, Daniel Miller reports that scholars have plenty of other ideas about where it may have come from. So do writers of fiction like me. Although Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago, he actually grew up in London at the start of the twentieth century. According to my version, young Ray found part-time work as Billy the Page at 221B Baker Street, where years later he would help its celebrated resident investigate various crimes. So intense was Chandlers involvement in solving a murder in the nearby town of Marlow that he used its name for his fictional detective. Could there be any better way to immortalize the location of Chandlers sleuthing with the world-famous Sherlock Holmes? Maybe, as Miller writes of his own investigation, maybe not. Sincerely, Daniel D. Victor, Ph.D. (author of the soon-to-be-released The Final Page of Baker Street)
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 18:44:31 +0000
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