In Farewell, My Lovely, Chandler again satirizes modern man as a failed romantic hero and sets him on a quest for an ultimately inconsequential goal.

And he again relies on characterization rather than a recognizable thematic message to propel the story. Chandler's main target in this novel is corrupt city government, represented here by Bay City, both a thinly-disguised depiction of Chandler's own Santa Monica and a microcosm of all civic authority that is rife with dishonesty. Chandler invested the fictional Bay City with his studied observations of the corrupt Santa Monica police force, which like the Bay City department, allowed illegal gambling in return for a percentage of the profits. The town is depicted as a virtual monument to hypocrisy, peopled with citizens who are outwardly pious but inwardly ruthless, for a small, wealthy handful own the whole town. As Chandler remarked...