Later, Marlowe spends two chapters at a cocktail party where rich people exchange insults, but where there are no real developments to the narrative. As he himself admits, he “waste tires, gasoline, words, and nervous energy in a game with no pay-off.” Indeed, we never again see the “interesting characters” (his description) whom Marlowe encounters during his time-wasting. On at least two occasions, he pursues a lead, finds nothing, and returns to his coffee and his hangover. I won’t spoil the plot, but it doesn’t give away much to reveal that our man Philip Marlowe doesn’t exactly move in a straight line. The Long Goodbye, the 1953 hardboiled detective novel by Raymond Chandler, breaks almost entirely from this formula. Stuff is going to happen, and it’s going to be gritty, and you’re going to like it. Even red herrings seem important right until they don’t. A chance encounter is almost never a coincidence. When a trail goes cold, there’s probably a secret clue somewhere. Plots never stop moving, and every seemingly extraneous detail exists for a reason. On your journey you’ll drink from flasks, resist femmes fatales (or not), and compromise your principles just enough to defeat the city’s darker elements. Detective novels are meant to grab you, kick you in the gut, hoist you up by your cheap lapels, and carry you along riveted as you stagger through the L.A.

The Long Good-bye by Raymond Chandler