Kirsch says: Raymond Chandler "was one of a small group of writers who used Los Angeles in the regional sense. The setting — from Pasadena to Santa Monica, from Hollywood to the Malibu Hills — was crucial to his work. Its places and people provided the stage and characters, and even the poetic mood. It was an ambivalent relationship. At times he loved the place; at other times he hated it. But it was always there.

"And as George P. Eliot once wrote: ‘If you want the feel and aspect of Los Angeles and vicinity in the ’30s, ’40s and early ’50s you could hardly do better than to read his fiction.’ "