There is a reason Raymond Chandler is still read... He shines a light on the shadows that surround the spotlight, and no one really likes to see that which lurks within those. People talk about the post-War Golden Age, but even at the time the darkness and the rot to which the sequins were sewn was known. Chandler lived a life as a businessman with an unorthodox lifestyle back before that was something you could accept even in yourself, and it shows in his writing. He knows the self-loathing and the desire to make clean that which was never really as dirty as the cover-up made it, and it shows. He understands what money can and can't buy, and what drives real desperation. But he also knows that there can be real redemption found at times, as well, and it is always remarkable to me how his stories have all the good guys playing bit parts away from the spotlight... He knows that there is a better path available, and that taking it rarely makes for an interesting story. Look at the minor characters in his stories, the honest ones or the folks just making do with a bad hand... That is a remarkably diverse crowd, given the sameness of the spotlit degeneracy that drives the plot. Worth a second and a third read... And worth looking at what is shown versus told, like any good writer.