I Rather Expected Something with Dirty Fingernails

Those writers who cater to the pulp appetites of the masses have been constant targets of abuse at the ailing hands of their fellow writers who pose as artists of a superior caliber. One of the few writers of detective-mystery fiction who has received critical acclaim not belying a profound disdain for all things smelling of pulp has been Raymond Chandler, a British-educated oil company executive who found himself jobless in S. California when the great crash came in 1929.