The Raymond Chandler map of Los Angeles

The writer had a dark view of the City of Angels but was undoubtedly seduced and enthralled with it too

Los Angeles was Raymond Chandler’s muse, mistress, and his making. For his famous anti-hero, private eye Philip Marlowe, it is a torturous, nasty place filled with ‘tough-looking palm trees’ and crooked cops. ‘I smelled Los Angeles before I got to it,’ he says in THE LITTLE SISTER. ‘It smelled stale and old like a living-room that had been closed too long. But the colored light fooled you.’