While other reviewers apparently fault the author for daring to depict the rather ordinary demise of the "great man", Chandler's life was more devoted to his isolation and misogyny than it was to his novels. Hiney's triumph is showing what an interesting life it was, nonetheless. Chandler was just a writer who loved words more than he loved people, who loaded up his cynicism in neat little rounds and fired at humanity with some precision. That same cynicism drove him to view life through the bottom of a shot glass, at no little cost to his art (or I suppose as some might argue to enhance his art). Mostly he wanted to get it right - mostly he did, especially in "The Long Goodbye". I like that Hiney doesn't let the extraordinary Mr. Marlowe overshadow the strains of ordinariness in Chandler's character. I certainly enjoy Chandler's fiction the greater for this very good life.