I really enjoyed this. It's really a treat to drink from THE source of classic detective pulp fiction. I haven't read Dashiel Hammett, but if he's as essential as Chandler claims in his forward, their work must be the pinnacle of the genre.

This is not my first detective novel. I took a circuitous route to Chandler starting with several of John Schwartzwelder's spoofs of the genre, and from there went to Jonathan Lethem's Gun, With Occasional Music and and an anonymous pulp tome. All are excellent in their own rights.

Beyond the written word, I had also seen many classic film noir pictures and listened to a lot of radio plays where Humphrey Bogart plays both Chandler's Philip Marlowe and Hammett's Sam Spade characters. But it's so good to be at the beginning. I suppose to travel further back would require Sir Conan Doyle's stories.