This is the first Raymond Chandler I've ever read, and I was impressed. Hard boiled detective stories aren't usually my cup of tea, but the narrative structure was well executed, the characters were mostly believable, and the throw away quips throughout are wonderful.

I really appreciated the unreliable narrator Marlowe for being frank in his unreliability. He traets the reader just like every other character in the story, only revealing as much as he needs, and nothing more. Sometimes, he lets slip a tiny fragment just throw you of course, only to surprise you later with proof of just how wrong you had been jumping to conclusions based on the little information you had.

Also, this book contained what is probably my favorite quote ever about coffee. "I went out the kitchen to make coffee - yards of coffee. Rich, strong, bitter, boiling hot, ruthless, depraved. The life blood of tired men." I will always remember it for that.