P.J., I received from Amazon.com a collection of all of Raymond Chandler's short stories. Just read Trouble Is My Business and it was a fantastic read! I will now read several more stories in preparation for your discussion thread of his works later on this month.
I hope that other Freepers are doing the same as this is great writing. I'll save my comments for the discussion but just want to mention that the style of writing reminds me of the old Steve Martin movie Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. It didn't do too well at the box office but it was one of my favorite Steve Martin films. Obvious the movie is a takeoff on the genre, but now I know where the screenwriters got most of their ideas!
The script of what is considered the FIRST film noir movie, Double Indemnity, was written by Chandler.