Short, But Sour

I finished the Chandler short, 'Spanish Blood'. Coming from 1935, I think it's his first really mature work. Not that the others are 'immature', you understand (they're certainly great fun); it's just that this is the first to really capture the sense of world-weary sadness that characterises the best noir fiction. The cop, Delaguerra, strives for the best, but can only keep the world from the worst. It also features Chandler's first femme fatale, as far as I'm concerned. Although she is a relatively peripheral figure, she is a force that corrupts in spite of herself. In this story, sin tars all, and the wages of sin truly are death, spiritual death for some, but literal for most.