I had another birthday this month (66 in case you were wondering - finally got my bus pass!) and this fine book arrived in the post. I thanked several members of the family for it before I identified my brother as the sender, but he hadn't immediately sprung to mind as he's not generally known for reading anything that was written after the Edwardian era. When I spoke to him on the phone he said he had been to lunch with the author, and after investigating her work, decided this book sounded fun and would make a great birthday gift. Now, his idea of fun might possibly include The Canterbury Tales so one has to take his use of the f word with caution, but in this instance we were on the same page and it was fun. Set in Los Angeles between the wars, the story follows a private detective, Philip Marlowe, at the point he is called in to find a wealthy heiress who has gone missing right after her engagement party. Marlowe doesn't normally do business with...