Farewell, My Lovely was my first Raymond Chandler experience, a novel I first read back in junior year of high school, and one that will forever be known to me as the novel that defines noir, hardboiled detectives and gumshoe novels.In this classic, detective Philip Marlowe gets hired to recover stolen jewels, which in turn has him running into the rogue gallery of gamblers, con men, crooked cops, and (of course) femme fatales. With this said, the story is completely character-driven, making it full of action and narrative. Just flip the book open to any page, and you'll clearly read slick, muscular dialogue and snappy comebacks. Chandler is a benchmark author for stories stripped of any literary fat.Besides Dashiel Hammett, Chandler is the perennial writer of gumshoe detectives. And Farewell, My Lovely is the perennial gumshoe novel.