Eighty years later, Raymond Chandler is still one of the Masters of Crime Novels and the "hard-boiled detective" genre. This book is a series of short stories, written in the 1930's and 40's, prefaced by an essay he wrote on writing crime fiction and gives the book its title.
I've always been a fan of Chandler's "Phillip Marlowe" and of Dashiell Hammet's "Thin Man." I grew up reading these novels that were in my great grandfather's bookcase. He was an educator and high school principal/superintendent in Chicago in the 1920's and 30's. He had a good appreciation of literature. Pop Deaver passed on before I could meet him, but his library told me a lot about the man (and, supposedly, I am related to the novelist, Jeffrey Deaver, somewhere along the line).
I guess I like these stories because they give me a pattern to use for my own character, Mike Magee. As much as I'd like to make him a tough PI, it never worked out that way. But he's tough in his own way.
If you write these sorts of stories, or you just enjoy reading them, I'd recommend this book and the opening essay. You'll find it as difficult to put down as I did.

I started the new year with more whiskey, rye and gin **and I quit in 2015** in these 8 tales of house dicks and PI's. Chandler to start the new year, can't think of a much better way.

This isn't a bad collection of hard-boiled short stories but it's not a terribly interesting one either. While each tale stars a different protagonist, none of them Chandler's signature Philip Marlowe, they all might as well be the same character. Street smart, sharp tongued, tougher than anyone else in the room, yet all possessing a heart of gold beneath their hard-boiled exterior. The other characters who appear in these shorts are similarly stock, and the narratives themselves pretty formula. (Try counting how many times the hero has a friend who gets shot, how many times the hero finds a dead body in a room, how many pistols are 'poked into ribs,' how many times the story ends in a big shootout, etc).

Taken on their own though, each of these stories is an enjoyable enough way to kill an hour or so. Together the sameness becomes a little tiresome. The are exceptions to this, among them the title essay, The Simple Art of Murder, in which Chandler takes the refined crime stories of his day (think Hercule Poirot) to task for their lack of realism. Crime fiction has of course changed much since then -- in many ways, because of the influence of his own work and similar gritty writers -- so his criticism no longer holds the same sting. It's mostly a period piece, without the humor that makes, say, Mark Twain's critique of the James Fenimore Cooper still worth reading.

Also separating itself from the pack is "Pearls Are a Nuisance," a humorous caper very unlike the rest of Chandler's work here. It's still a crime story of course but rather than the usual hard-boiled protagonist, it features a comical upper class fop, in the P. G. Wodehouse/Bertie Wooster mold. It's a fun diversion, made all the more so by its incongruity to the stories around it. A nice, well, 'pearl' among otherwise pretty average pulp.

All in all, a fairly unremarkable collection but if you enjoy Chandler, these stories should prove fun breezy enough reads. I'd suggest stretching them out over a period of time though. They're all simply too alike to consume in one big helping.

“I merely say that all reading for pleasure is escape, whether it be Greek, mathematics, astronomy, Benedetto Croce, or The Diary of the Forgotten Man. To say otherwise is to be an intellectual snob, and a juvenile at the art of living.”

Four short stories of varying quality and an interesting, if grouchy, essay on the state of crime fiction in the 1930s.

The titular essay is a very interesting read, Chandler discusses the popular British (and British styled) crime writers of the day and their failings compared to himself and Dashiell Hammett. He criticises the plotting rather than the writing whilst stating an obvious preference for the more realistic prose of Hemmingway (and himself.) I was astounded to read that The Red House Mystery was an incredibly popular bestseller and yet despite being written by the creator of Winnie The Pooh faded in to obscurity.

The short stories do not feature Marlowe and are a mixed bag but all interesting in parts. The final story is something quite remarkable considering the source and not something you would ever expect knowing what Chandler is famous for. Pearls Are a Nuisance is about an upper class detective in LA, who talks like he's out of a Jane Austen novel and is seemingly terrible at what he does. As a counterpoint to the opening essay it's a wonderful parody but it's also a highly enjoyable read on its own merits.

I would recommend to someone that likes the subject matter/genre. I liked some stories more than others. I found the essay (The Simple Art of Murder) delightful.

The essay on writers/writing was of interest. The collection of stories varied in interest for me. I don't mean to speak disrespectfully of writing by author who is held in such high esteem, but I struggle to get through the slang of the 30's. When it was written it had to have made sense to the reading public. For me, I stumble over each foreign expression, and that, I am certain, was not the intention of the author.

Le ragioni del cadavere

Dei racconti contenuti nella raccolta non ho molto da dire, se non che se ne percepisce fin troppo la maturazione acerba, il mercato di destinazione (i famigerati pulp magazines), la mancanza di un vero interesse alla lettura se non per ansia da completismo dell'opera di Chandler.

Sono storie stereotipate, piuttosto ripetitive e mancano di personaggi di solido spessore.
L'unica autentica variazione viene da "Pearls are a nuisance", una specie di parodia con un protagonista che parla in un inglese affettatissimo e rifinito ("I cannot seem to change my speech, Henry. My father and mother were both severe purists in the New England tradition, and the vernacular has never come naturally to my lips, even while I was in college") il quale cerca di recuperare una collana di perle in coppia con un energumeno perennemente sotto alcool.
In controluce, si può forse trovare un accenno autobiografico dello scrittore al suo passato di studente di private schools inglesi di alto lignaggio, che spesso giocava su questo elemento per sottolineare la sua diversità rispetto agli altri pulp fictioners. Ma poco altro.
Sfortunatamente, infatti, la misura giusta dell'umorismo di Chandler rimane la "one line wit" marlowiana, quindi il racconto non fa molto ridere e rimane confinato nel recinto delle curiosità.

Ovviamente, Chandler being Chandler, in 600 e passa pagine si trovano perle che non costituiscono affatto una seccatura (“I’m an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard”: da adottare come motto nella prossima vita).
Ma sono, appunto, gemme isolate in contesti scarsamente interessanti di per sè.

La vera gemma è costituita dal famosissimo testo che dà il titolo alla raccolta, nel quale Chandler scrive (a modo suo, quindi benissimo) un sintetico e acuminato saggio sulla letteratura (di genere e non, anzi direi sulla letteratura e basta), partendo da un'osservazione che mi rassicura sulla mia idiosincrasia per le Agate e i Conan di questo mondo ("The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers").

Il vero problema di quegli scrittori è che le loro storie non sono realistiche in nessuna accezione del termine. Perchè il prof. Moriartry si danna l'anima a compiere complicatissimi delitti, quando potrebbe mandare un sicario con una pistola? A me è sempre parso che questi romanzi siano stati scritti per permettere l'invenzione del Cluedo (whodunit? La Sig.ra Pottermore nella stanza delle viole da gamba con l'astrolabio. Wadafack).
Se lo chiede anche Chandler, il quale per rispondere si rifà al suo mentore ideale, Dashiell Hammett: "Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish. He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes".

Anche i cadaveri di Chandler hanno generalmente ottime ragioni per comparire sulla scena.
Amore, avidità, denaro, corruzione.
Sono il prodotto di personaggi interessanti, spesso for all the wrong reasons.
Hanno frequentato donne affascinanti, sempre for all the wrong reasons ("A hard-boiled redhead sang a hard-boiled song in a voice that could have been used to split firewood").
Danno da vivere al più interessante di tutti, Philip Marlowe, un uomo senza il quale il mondo sarebbe un posto più noioso.
Ma purtroppo nei racconti Marlowe non c'è.

"In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man.
But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. 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. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things.
He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. 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. He talks as the man of his age talks—that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.
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. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. 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".
(The simple art of murder)

"If you want trouble," he said, "I come from where the make it."

A short story collection of hard boiled mysteries with tough men, dangerous woman, and snappy dialog. Although dated and inappropriate at times it's saved by sharp descriptions and well thought out murder plots.

Chandler devotees (like myself) have probably felt sad when remembering that he only completed seven novels. Of course, you can re-read them (which I may do more of in the future) but you can also check out this collection of early stories - which has plenty for fans to savor.

His strengths are here: vivid physical descriptions, minutely detailed settings, cinematic knockdowns and, of course, the singular language that the writer seems to have invented. To a degree, these stories may be more sprawling and action-centric than the Marlowe books but Chandler is clearly already hard at work, making it all look easy.

The volume contains 8 twisty tales but it begins with the essay that gives the volume its title. And what a fun essay it is! With his signature precision, Chandler gives us a crash course in how to write about murder... if you want to be among the best at it. Or, rather, if you want to be like Chandler (which is what he is indirectly saying). It's both a serious and a lighthearted essay - and I laughed quite a bit. This is the closest you will ever get to Chandler being in your living room, throwing back a couple of wet ones with you and personally giving you the insider tricks of his trade.

I rather enjoyed the actual stories for various typical reasons. But I found one in particular - the least detective-y of the bunch - to be an immensely refreshing change of pace. 'Pearls Are a Nuisance' is a story that flirts with being a possible murder story but it's more of a man-with-a-mission tale involving theft. It's like a certain kind of brain-teaser movie which, once you get to the end, makes you feel like you'd like to watch it again - to see where clues have been sprinkled along the way. Chandler hinges the plot on a most unlikely friendship. It may very well, in one condensed clip, be the funniest piece of writing that this master storyteller gave us.

Very Raymond Chandler. Women don't fair particularly well, but the gum-shoe detective stories are tight and well plotted.

Read all of Chandler's short stories, novels, essays and letters back in the 1970s and thought they were great. Chandler was one of a kind and one of the best. This is one of my favorites.

5 Stars. I've met an author or two, read interviews, but never have I found such interesting comments as Chandler's 18-page analysis of detective fiction. Where does it stand in the pantheon of English literature? Which practitioners are better at it, and which are not? It's seven decades old. One wonders what he would say about today's crop? It opens with an attack on the "critical fraternity," those who exclude mystery writing from great literature. He states, "Good specimens of the art are much rarer than good serious novels." He then soars to unimagined heights! On Doyle, "Holmes after all is mostly an attitude and a few dozen lines of unforgettable dialogue." Chandler is an advocate of realism in mystery writing; his hard-boiled fiction demonstrates that. He takes on A.A. Milne and his run-away best seller 'The Red House,' and uses words like "fraud." He hasn't time for the detectives of Christie and Sayer, nor their English country-house settings. But for Dashiell Hammett, he changes to "first-class" and "original," with favourable comparisons to Ernest Hemingway. The essay is in Chandler's short story collection of 1950 of the same name. (No2020/Mar2025)