Chandler's titular essay is a must-read for anyone wanting to write a mystery story, noir or not. It gets right at the heart of why people read good fiction--because it is believable--and lays out the archetype for the classic hero of the gritty detective story--the Sam Spades and Philip Marlowes of the literary world.

The eight collected short stories are interesting, action packed, and filled with many twists and turns. While Chandler is never a weak writer, and the prose of his short fiction is still suitably stylistic, it didn't strike me quite as powerfully as did the prose of Chandler's novel-length effort in "The Big Sleep." Still, there were many poignant endings that make you realize these stories aren't really about "mysteries," per se. They're about the wickedness that people commit against each other, and how a disillusioned few struggle against it in their own small ways.

This collection has sat on my shelf (well, a variety of shelves) for about 30 years, being my "in case of emergency, break glass" read. Well, I wouldn't say this is an emergency, but our library is still closed, and there probably won't be a better time. Published in 1950, this volume collects 12 early stories by Chandler. We see him grope his way towards Marlowe - some of the protagonists are hotel detectives, gamblers, one of them is even a policeman! - with varying degrees of success. The titular essay, written in 1944 about the state of detective fiction, is absolutely fascinating. As for the stories, my favorites are the utterly wacky "Pearls Are a Nuisance," which reads like P.G. Wodehouse parody of Chandler, and the short, spare "I'll Be Waiting," about a hotel detective who makes a moral choice with devastating consequences.

The only Raymond Chandler I'd read before this book was his inexplicably famous "The Big Sleep," which I thought was a load of toss. Fortunately, apart from the essay that gives this collection its name, some of this book isn't as awful as "The Big Sleep," though some of it is. High body counts and silly contrivances abound.

Chandler's essay "The Simple Art of Murder" ought to be called, "why my mystery stories are better than everyone else's, especially those with the audacity to outsell me." It's even more ridiculously self-important than his stories. Chandler rather mean-spiritedly decries what he considers to be silly, frivolous, and unrealistic detective stories while setting up his school-of-hard-knocks protagonists, who talk street lingo but listen to Mozart, and whose bleak moods are always accompanied by more rainfall than Los Angeles has ever seen, as the epitome of realism. Recommended, if only for the lulz.

Spanish Blood: beleaguered cop fights political machine.

I'll Be Waiting: a hotel dick, a dame, and her no-good man who's just got out of prison.

The King in Yellow: The first fully realized female character I've read in Chandler. Nice surprise, but an utterly silly plot involving the sort of solution Chandler sneered at Agatha Christie for writing. Monogrammed pajamas? Come ON!

Pearls are a Nuisance: Chandler deliberately departs from type, and the story's much more entertaining because of it. This story would be excellent if not for Chandler repeatedly calling attention to the fact that he doesn't think real people speak grammatically.

Pickup on Noon Street: a poor helpless dame and the good guy who gets caught up in her business. Lots of shooting.

Smart-Aleck Kill: Hollywood, drugs, extortion, and murder. A pretty hilarious escape from a car.

Guns at Cyrano's: another good female character, loads of shooting (hence the title) and blackmail.

Nevada Gas: the most absurdly contrived murders of all, and exactly the sort of thing Chandler mocked Dorothy Sayers for writing in his essay.

Bien. Leerse todos los relatos breves seguidos no es buena idea. Pero leerlos separados en el tiempo y de vez en cuando está bien.

Based on all the middling reviews, I only tried a few of these. Yet, I found the titular essay quite interesting. Well, the last bit of it. It starts as a rant, extolling the virtues of "realistic" American detective fiction (and Dashiell Hammett in particular) vs traditional English murder mysteries that Chandler blasts as being stiff, formulaic and divorced from reality. The really interesting bit is at the very end where he lays out the essence of the protagonist of (successful) American detective fiction, and which I think captures the nature of Chandler's own Philip Marlowe so perfectly - the everyday man, with a toughness of character and a sense of honor and purpose, with no tolerance for pretense or pettiness.

"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."

I'll be Waiting (3.0) - Chandler's writing is in fine form in this very short piece about a hotel detective on the graveyard shift that manages to get caught up in some late night trouble.

The King in Yellow (4.0) - Flashes of Chandler's brilliance here, with a hotel detective sniffing around a situation that just smells funny and draws him in with every turn. The detective could just as easily have been Philip Marlowe. There is scant detectable difference. Cheeky, wisecracking, hardboiled, stubborn as all hell and driven to sniff out the truth for himself if nobody else. Includes some real seedy characters, and an especially brash and loathsome musician as the titular "King".

Le doy cuatro estrellas por el ensayo inicial, el cual es excelente.

Pero realmente me costó conectar con las historias cortas del libro, apenas pude leer tres, pero se me hizo muy pesado. El estilo de Chandler parece ser muy anticuado para mí, al menos en inglés.

No creo que haya nada malo aquí, pero simplemente no funcionó conmigo.

Actualización 2024: Lo disfruté mucho más ahora. Nuevamente no leí todo, pero ahora fue mucho mejor. El ensayo inicial sigue siendo brillante e bastante malinterpretado con el tiempo.

"The Simple Art of Murder" is an essay written by the American crime author, Raymond Chandler, in 1950 and it is a rather important piece of crime fiction scholarship, a cornerstone article that even today is held as classic. It is a short, though dense, and full of insights as well as information text that focuses on a heavy criticism on the English mystery/detective fiction and the -many- British cozy mysteries. Chandler thought that this school of crime writing was saturated and a new kind of crime novel is begging to be born. He castigates some famous English authors such as Dorothy Sayers who famously said that detective fiction is a "literature of escape" and retorts that "all reading for pleasure is escape". Chandler doesn't seem to bother with the popular dilemma of whether or not detective fiction books are second-rate novels or full-fledged literary works with the same potential as the great products of this art.

There is also an extended number of pages dedicated to another American hard-boiled writer, Dashiell Hammett. Chandler seems to hold a deep respect for Hammett for whom he writes that: "He was the one -the only one who achieved critical recognition- who wrote, or tried to write realistic mystery fiction". Chandler's overall critique on the English crime fiction tradition is built on his main argument that there is a lack of realism in those novels, a problem that the American authors tried to alleviate by writing more down-to-earth and plausible dialogue while creating characters who resemble those that we encounter in our everyday life. This new wave of American crime writers would win the audiences around the world in the years to come and the hard-boiled fiction became a, relatively, autonomous (sub)genre.

If you are a crime fiction scholar you have already read this classic essay, but it is also a wonderful, instructive read for anyone who enjoys quality crime fiction. It also has a certain historical value as it kind of marks a transition point between English cozy mysteries and American hard-boiled novels. The edition I purchased here in Amazon features also, apart from the essay, a few short stories written by Chandler.

This is an excellent collection of short novellas and an essay. I'm surprised I'd never read this essay before. It's right up my alley, something I probably would have looked for if I'd known it existed. It's great, and I love how he mocks a lot of the paint-by-numbers mystery books being released in his day.

The stories are great, obviously, and I'd put them up against any of the Marlowe books. But the one that surprised me the most is "Pearls are a Nuisance." It's extraordinarily funny, which you don't often think about Chandler's work. Sure, there are jokes elsewhere, and they're usually dry and sardonic, but this one would probably qualify as a laff riot. I can't tell you how many times I chuckled and roared with laughter while reading this one, even when I was in public. And I love the relationship between the protagonist and Henry, the ex-chauffer.

You need to read this.

My oh my! This collection of eight short (middling) stories is a gem of hard-boiled fiction. Don't be put off by Chandler's overlong essay on the genre, this is the best of his pre-novel output, originally from the pulp stories in the "BLACK MASK."
The skill he has in plot twists and the Sherlock thinking the protagonists use are "spine-tingling." Beyond the mayhem, in PEARLS ARE A NUISANCE, he shows very clever and funny byplay between the detective and his betrothed. It proves Chandler as more than 'just another hack crime-writer.'
Worthy of five stars, despite having been written in the 1930s!

The Simple Art of Murder is an engaging collection of stories by Raymond Chandler, which is introduced by Chandler's powerful and forthright title essay about detective stories. It's noteworthy for me that none of the stories had Marlowe and I still enjoyed them!

It is extremely arduous to pick a favorite, so I'll choose two: "Pearls Are a Nuisance" and "Guns at Cyrano's."


Here's a favorite quote from "Guns:"


"The music softened and a tall high-yaller torch singer drooped under an amber light and sang of something very far away and unhappy, in a voice like old ivory."

The essay, The Simple Art of Murder, presents Chandler’s rationale for the realistic presentation of the protagonist, his surroundings, friends, and nemeses in the mystery subgenre now called hard-boiled or noir fiction. This essay takes both the authors and stories of cozy and lock-room mysteries to task for their lack of realism as well as the complex artifices needed to support those mystery subgenres.

This book which includes Chandler short fiction as well as the essay mentioned above is required reading for readers interested in literary history and writers pursuing spare, to-the-point dialog, theme, and characterization.

Once you get past the pretensiousness that Chandler demonstrates in his thinking, he does actually make some good points on the nature of detective fiction and what its place is in the realm of literature. I agree with thinking that since all literature is a form of escape, then wanting to dig into the small items in a story should be alright in detective literature - especially since most detective stories are built on that.
His idea of realism as a genre is also interesting. He brings the detective novel into the real world, where he says it belongs. Rather than "provide a corpse" for a mystery to revolve around, the circumstances and people who are surrounded by it are complex, dark, and may beyond an individual's understanding.
That's why Sam Spade, Sherlock Holmes, and others persist and are popular. We want someone like them to make the world a little safer.