Jerry writes:
> The private eye is declasse in a traditional way but the private
eye also positions himself on the margins of the class system in
other ways analogous to criminal lumpens, jazz artists and other
marginal bohemians.
Which is exactly what Ross MacDonald did in his Lew Archer series. Archer starts out as a Marlowe clone and then evolves into something completely new (crime novelists are still mining the vein first opened/discovered by MacDonald). It was as if he blended the strengths of both Hammett and Chandler and jettisoned their flaws.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister