The Chandler collection Book

'Finger Man'.

This is sort of the first appearance of Philip Marlowe. According to Wikipedia, the narrator was not named when this, Chandler's third published story, originally appeared in the pulp magazine Black Mask in 1934. In later publications a slight tweak was made, to establish this guy as Marlowe.

The essential Marlovian quality is present here, making this an appropriate choice to bring into the Marlowe canon, whereas a lot of Chandler's other early short fiction -- competent, well-crafted and enjoyable though it is -- does not belong. (My notion of the essential Marlovian quality comes from reading The Big Sleep about 20 years ago, and watching the Bogart movie three or four times. I've also seen the Elliot Gould movie of The Long Goodbye, which is awesome.)

Here we have a complicated plot, where the real effect of the story does not come from the detective working out who did it, or why, or how. The specifics of the plot, the particular betrayals and sell-outs and motives, are incidental. This is the story of a man who happens to be a detective discovering fundamental flaws in the universe, human nature and civilisation. Perhaps he already knew about all this, which is how he managed to survive the story. The melancholy tone of the story comes from the terrible confirmation of his sad knowledge.

'It's a shame how little account some folks take of human life -- or twenty-two grand.'

Here and in The Big Sleep the contrast to this essential wrongness of the world is the surprising discovery that some poor random guy -- here, the cab driver Tom Sneyd -- is at least as decent as the narrator.