Review: Warhammer Crime Stories or Farewell My Lovely

I have read a few of the Warhammer Crime stories recently and have some thoughts.

The first thing one notices is that all the stories are very similar in style and type of plot, irrespective of which author is credited. The central heroes are also basically the same character, although they may not have the same name......

And that character is Philip Marlowe

“down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.

“He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.

“The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.” 
― Raymond Chandler

The problem is that the Philip Marlowe stories have already been written, and written by a writer of superior talent to anyone employed by Games Workshop - and it is no insult to Black Library to point this out. Marlowe has been brought to life by some of the greatest stars in Hollywood...see above.

The cigarettes may have been turned into lithosticks and the Colt 45s into laspistols but, in reality, that’s just superficial skin on the pudding. The stories owe nothing to the world of The Imperium and everything to the Pacific coast of the USA in the 30s and 40s.

What we are left with is a pastiche; often quite a fun pastiche but The Big Sleep they ain’t.

Expect to see The Cadian Falcon when they move on to Hammet.