I would rate it 3.5 stars, if the app let me. All the stories were good, but not great. Each story is written in the classic Chandler-esque, hard-boiled noir style, which is quite enjoyable. This is a collection of 4 short stories, each with their own protagonist. "Guns at Cyranos" was my favorite. I do recommend this book. ( )

This is one of three collections extracted from The Simple Art of Murder, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1950. The collection contains four stories, all about fifty pages long. Each is set in Los Angeles, centered on a tough-guy protagonist, and told by a third-person narrator who describes actions rather than thoughts. All first appeared in detective magazines. Philip Marlowe, hero of Chandler’s novels, is nowhere to be found. In the title story, originally published as “Noon Street Nemesis” in 1936, undercover narc Pete Anglish accidentally becomes involved in a scheme to extort money from a movie star. “Smart-Aleck Kill” (1934), another tale with a Hollywood angle, tells of P. I. Johnny Dalmas’s attempts to unravel a bogus blackmail plot. In “Guns at Cyrano’s” (1936) Ted Carmady, once a detective, now a hotel owner, gets into trouble when he discovers a pretty dancer unconscious in the hallway. Gambler Johnny De Rose hopes to avoid a vengeful gangster in “Nevada Gas” (1935) but is dragged into deadly violence anyway.

Not as great as i expected. 4 stories. The best of them- Pickup on Noon Street and Neveda Gas have all the expected dark alleys, smoky women, tough talk, clever dicks and sentimentality you'd want and expect, but also had a bit of a by the numbers of feel too. Like had to check off all these elements, had to have this number of twists and then, boom- you're story is done. So- yes, maybe that is what the writing comes down to (???) but it felt a bit artificial. Didn't finish the Guns at Cyrano's as it seemed to want to delight in complication after complication and i didn't like where it was going, so ... dropped it. ( )

Four good Raymond Chandler stories. Well worth the read. ( )