Discussing "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler

From Mustich's website:

Dashiell Hammett may have invented the hardboiled detective story, but nobody wrote it better than Raymond Chandler. With his stylized prose and flair for similes, he gave his detective Philip Marlowe a voice that would become the hallmark of the genre. Marlowe is the protagonist in all of Chandler’s novels, and the movies drawn from these fictions proved to be a heavy influence on American film noir, just as the books influenced generations of detective novelists.

What: Mystery & Suspense
When: 1939
Try: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett; L. A. Confidential by James Ellroy
Adaptations: The 1946 Howard Hawks film stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall; The 1978 remake stars Robert Mitchum as Marlowe and James Stewart