In this novel, Chandler perfected the technique that he had been practicing from his days as a pulp fiction writer.

He aimed to present a steady accumulation of concrete detail which, in its raw force, would suppress the subjective emotionality that attends the incident of a murder. Chandler called this technique the "objective method." He maintained that by focusing attention on the minutiae of the everyday world — manifested in the abundance of descriptive detail — in the midst of a murder scene, readers would realize the absurdity of life, the inconsequential nature of much human endeavor, and the often outrageous demands that the very form of the melodramatic detective story makes on the imagination. Some critics have even said that Chandler was slightly mocking the genre in which he wrote.

Chandler's adroit handling of dialogue again gives Farewell, My Lovely much of its vitality and its satiric...