There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. That’s the opening of the classic pulp story “Red Wind” by one of the greatest practitioners of the form, Raymond Chandler. The paragraph sets a tone. It gives you a sense of what’s coming. We know it’ll have at least one dead body and plenty of sharp gab. Pulp
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