I can't believe it's taken me this long to read Raymond Chandler, considering how much I liked the movies and Bogart in particular.
Witty, self-deprecating, intelligent and so far ahead of it's time. Chandler's writing is so often copied and imitated (badly compared to the whip smart writing in this).
The influence he laid down is wide and varied and so much sounds like a derivative of him. Now that I have read this, it's almost impossible to believe this was written in 1937.
Harry Dresden is a direct descendant of this, I thought it had a witty noir feel to it, but reading this takes the shine off Butcher's work a little, because this is sublime and perfect.
Whedon, Bucther, Eddings, Evanovich all take their queues from here and for good reason. It's like watching Fritz Lang's Epic "Spies" from 1927 and seeing every movie cliche laid bare as they are all used for the first and only original time in one go.
Recommended for all old movie and good book lovers.
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