The Blue Dahlia is the story of a war hero who is suspected of having murdered his unfaithful wife. Indeed, the movie studio archives are a valuable literary resource and it is inevitable that many screenplays will be published as the study of movies expands. The Blue Dahlia was completed on schedule and was well received, earning Chandler his second Academy Award nomination.Īlthough the writer s screenplay is metamorphosed by other hands in the movie-making process, the screenplay as written has an independent existence, and may be read and judged as a literary work. Chandler agreed to cannibalize his novel-in-progress, but as detailed in producer John Houseman s memoir he became stuck and decided that he could only complete his screenplay drunk. In 1944 Paramount Pictures, where Chandler was under contract, needed a rush script for Alan Ladd. Converted from a never-completed novel, this screenplay is all that survives of the novel Chandler worked on between The Lady in the Lake and The Little Sister.

Raymond Chandler s screenplay for The Blue Dahlia is a valuable addition to the published canon for the writer who has been called the Shakespeare of hardboiled fiction. And for a sensible woman like Stella, he may be just what she needs.A previously unpublished work by Raymond Chandler. He's difficult but honest, brash but considerate-and undeniably sexy. Despite a reputation for being difficult, Roz Harper has been nothing but kind to Stella, offering her a comfortable place to live and a challenging new job as manager of the flourishing In the Garden nursery.Īs Stella settles comfortably into her new life, she finds a nurturing friendship with Roz and expectant mother Hayley and a fierce attraction to ruggedly handsome landscaper Logan Kitridge. She isn't intimidated by Harper House-nor by its mistress. Trying to escape the ghosts of the past, young widow Stella Rothchild, along with her two energetic little boys, has moved back to her roots in southern Tennessee. And for as long as anyone alive remembers, the ghostly Harper Bride has walked the halls, singing lullabies at night. Against the backdrop of a house steeped in history and a thriving new gardening business, three women unearth the memories of the past in the first novel in #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts' In the Garden Trilogy.Ī Harper has always lived at Harper House, the centuries-old mansion just outside of Memphis.

The blue dahlia book