The Black-Eyed Blonde

AUTHOR’S NOTE

In his files, Raymond Chandler kept a list of possible titles for future books and stories. Among them were The Diary of a Loud Check Suit, The Man with the Shredded Ear, and Stop Screaming — It’s Me. Also on the list was The Black-Eyed Blonde.

In all the Marlowe novels his creator played fast and loose with the topography of Southern California, and I have allowed myself the same license. Yet there were many details that had to be accurate and of which I was unsure. I therefore depended heavily on advice from a quintet of informants who know the area intimately. These are Candice Bergen, Brian Siberell, Robert Bookman, and my agents Ed Victor and Geoffrey Sanford. For their expertise, generosity, patience, and good humor I wish to express my deepest gratitude. I am especially appreciative of the care, thought, and inventiveness that Candice Bergen devoted to the text, and of the numerous pitfalls she steered me past. And I am sorry that the peacock made only a fleeting appearance.

Others to whom I owe warm thanks are: María Fasce Ferri, Rodrigo Fresan, Graham C. Greene and the Estate of Raymond Chandler, Dr. Gregory Page, Maria Rejt, Fiona Ruane, John Sterling, and my manuscript editor nonpareil, Bonnie Thompson.

Finally, warm thanks to my brother, Vincent Banville, who introduced me to Marlowe, and whose own crime novels showed me how it could be done.