This take off on Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled detective novels is a metaphor-filled thrill ride to an explosive finish. As complex and earthy as the genre it parodies, "The Big Good-bye" provides dozens of laughs a page as its protagonist, a seedy ex-marine turned private eye who is still in love with his ex-wife, bumbles his way through a maze of red herrings and plot twists that would have Phillip Marlowe's head spinning. "The Big Good-bye" is a lark, but it is also an homage to a time in literature when every dark alley held a mystery.