Prefaced by the famous "Atlantic Monthly" essay of the same name, in which he argues the virtues of the hard-boiled detective novel, this collection -- mostly drawn from stories he wrote for the pulps -- demonstrates Chandler's imaginative, entertaining facility with the form. "Raymond Chandler is a master." "THE NEW YORK TIMES" " Chandler] wrote as if pain hurt and life mattered." "THE NEW YORKER" "Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious." ROBERT B. PARKER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW" "Philip Marlowe remains the quintessential urban private eye." "LOS ANGELES TIMES" "Nobody can write like Chandler on his home turf, not even Faulkner.... An original.... A great artist." "THE BOSTON BOOK REVIEW" "Raymond Chandler was one of the finest prose writers of the twentieth century.... Age does not wither Chandler's prose.... He wrote like an angel." "LITERARY REVIEW" " T]he prose rises to heights of unselfconscious eloquence, and we realize with a jolt of excitement that we are in the presence of not a mere action tale teller, but a stylist, a writer with a vision." JOYCE CAROL OATES, "THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS" "Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence." ROSS MACDONALD "Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since." PAUL AUSTER " Chandler]'s the perfect novelist for our times. He takes us into a different world, a world that's like ours, but isn't. " CAROLYN SEE "A serious rereading ofthe Marlowe novels and stories yields more surprises than a rereading of Hemingway." RICHARD RUSSO, AUTHOR OF "EMPIRE FALLS"