The High Window
- 240
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The High Window” is a compact, wry Marlowe case about a rare gold coin that leaves corpses in its wake. Hired by a wealthy widow to recover the missing doubloon, Marlowe learns that everyone who has held it ends up dead. Some readers rank it a notch below the first two Marlowe novels, with fewer memorable lines; others notice a more romantic, protective streak in the detective. It is Raymond Chandler’s third Philip Marlowe novel.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
A CLASSIC NOVEL BY THE MASTER OF HARD-BOILED CRIME, THE HIGH WINDOW IS RAYMOND CHANDLER'S THIRD STORY FEATURING LACONIC PI PHILIP MARLOWE. 'He lay crumpled on his back. Very lonely, very dead. The safe door was wide open. A metal drawer was pulled out. It was empty now. There may have been money in it once.' Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe's on a case: his client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband's collection. That's the simple part. It becomes more complicated when Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead. That's also unlucky for a private investigator, because leaving a trail of corpses around LA puts cops' noses seriously out of joint. If Marlowe doesn't wrap this one up fast, he's going to end up either in jail or in a wooden box in the ground . . . 'Chandler's books should be read and judged, not as escapist literature, but as works of art' W.H. Auden 'Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess
Reading order · Philip Marlowe
Full order & progress →- The Big SleepStart here
7.67.6 / 10 - Farewell, My Lovely
7.77.7 / 10 - The High WindowThis book
7.67.6 / 10 - Lady in the LakeLady in the Lake–Not ranked yet
- The Little Sister
7.67.6 / 10 - The Long Goodbye
8.08.0 / 10 - PlaybackPlayback–Not ranked yet
- Trouble Is My BusinessTrouble Is My Business–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.5 across 76 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 34% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Crime & mystery average of 7.6. That is how 7.6 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.0 | 12 | 16% |
| Hardcover | 7.5 | 64 | 84% |
Frequently asked
How long is The High Window?
It has 240 pages — shorter than 92% of the ranked books in Crime & mystery.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Crime & mystery — and a score of 7.6, the closest to this book.
