In such classics of noir as The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler wrote of sleuth Philip Marlowe's pursuit of desperate criminals in mid-20th-century southern California. Although Chandler never wrote an autobiography, here Barry Day arranges hundreds of quotations from Chandler's novels, stories, and letters to create a composite portrait of this former oil company executive who became the most respected author of the hardboiled detective fiction genre and a successful screenwriter. Evocative black and white photographs depict the bygone Los Angeles that served as setting for many of the novels.

"Barry Day's book is a welcome reminder of just what a great writer Raymond Chandler was, and also illuminates his life—Who knew he went to an English public school?—and the whole phenomenon of Los Angeles, and the way then and now the sleazy and the corrupt live cheek by jowl with the rich and glamorous. A pleasure to read!"—Michael Korda

"Barry Day has gone through the Chandler canon with a sharp eye and a flensing knife. What remains is a fascinating and convincing portrait of a writer who, using the material of his own life and his convictions, refined pulp into literature. More than any biography I've read, this book stirred in me a new sympathy for Chandler to match the admiration I've always felt."—Dean Koontz