Below is a sample chapter from Chandler & West: A Story of Los Angeles, to be released in the first quarter of 2026:

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The League of Women Voters held their annual charity event at Huntington’s gardens. It was high tea with finger sandwiches and bon bon, pinkies aloft during sips, and wide-brimmed hats pinned to heads at gravity-defying angles.

Trapped at one tea table was Raymond Chandler, seated with his wife Cissy and two of her League friends. One was named Gladys and the other Eunice. He could not keep straight who was who, not that it mattered. His tea was tepid and his cucumber-and-shrimp salad sandwich was growing warm. Bow-tied, freshly shaved, neck scratchy from his over-starched collar, Chandler was miserable.

He should be at his typewriter, sweating blood and crying salt, doing whatever it took to get the next chapter down on paper. The Kynette trial had not stirred the depths of his inspiration. His publisher thought attending the trial would be like the river boats in a Twain novel firing cannons to surface the bodies of drowned swimmers. The details of the Lassarus bombing only seeded more doubt in his book and himself. City cops bomb a private eye’s car as payback for investigating City Hall corruption? His novel’s blackmail plot seemed mundane by comparison. If the crime in the city papers is more gripping than your book’s, you need to get out of the mystery trade, he told himself.

His bored gaze led him to lock eyes with a young boy across the event hall. The child was six or seven, with a face as grim as a mortician’s. He, too, sat at a table of women in frills and finery, mothers and debutantes, all as prim as a coterie of English governesses. The boy’s mother had oiled down his hair into a blond shell that gripped his skull, as though someone had cracked an egg on his head and let it drip down to his cheeks. No boy that age should be so clean, Chandler thought of the scrubbed and rosy lad.

Man and boy gazed at each other for a long and dire moment. If Chandler had a baseball, he would have invited the kid outside for a game of catch. But Chandler was not a man to carry baseballs around town. He was not particularly good at catching them either.

An announcement at the flower-festooned podium returned Chandler to his situation. The League had formed a committee to study the pervasiveness of illegal organized gambling in Los Angeles county.

“With the prosecution of Capt. Kynette of the Los Angeles police, there has been a stir to recall Mayor Shaw,” said a flower-hatted speaker into the microphone. “The committee will start with an examination of the casino yachts anchored off the Santa Monica pier, and extend to reports of illicit casinos in private homes in and around Laurel Canyon.”

“Absolutely filthy,” Gladys, or Eunice, murmured to the table.

“Isn’t it though?” Eunice, or Gladys, agreed. “But what does Mayor Shaw have to do with any of this?”

“Kynette ran a secret unit in the police department,” Chandler said. “Mayor Shaw personally directed that unit. They were his boys. Dial-a-thug.”

“Really, Ray.” Cissy poured Eunice, or Gladys, more tea. “You turn everything into a penny dreadful.”

“The police do work for the mayor,” Eunice, or Gladys, said. “I don’t see a problem with Shaw telling them what to do.”

“Kynette’s boys disassembled a private eye’s jalopy, bolt-by-bolt, with a pipe bomb,” Chandler said. “The detective had been hired by a citizens’ group to dig into the mayor’s connections to underground gambling. Kynette and his men delivered a combustible warning straight from Shaw’s mouth.”

“So dramatic, Ray,” Cissy said.

Too much time spent at the trial—too much time thinking, too much time brooding, not enough time doing. Got to get back to the typewriter.

Chandler rose and excused himself. He strode for the exit, one hand reaching for his pipe. The boy across the way gazed forlornly from his table of bobbin and Chantilly. Sorry, kid—on this boat, it’s every man for himself.

Outside, Chandler welcomed the solitude. He cleaned the bowl of his pipe with his penknife and smacked it against his heel. He stuffed into it cuts of the blend he’d been smoking for years now. Another regularity in his life, another given in a life of givens. Next time he was at the tobacconist’s, he’d search out a new blend. Rattle the tree, so to speak.

Pipe lighted, Chandler strolled the garden. It was symmetric in the European style, with mirrored halves of blooming flowers and shaped hedges. He directed himself toward the Japanese garden on the other side of the property. He preferred their way, where traversing a garden is like reading a story. In a Japanese garden, there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. Symmetries are like vacuums in Nature, that is, abhorred. He learned all that twenty years earlier at Golden Gate Park, when he lived in San Francisco. Now, that was a drinking man’s town. It was a real give-‘em-hell kind of place.

In the distance, he made out a rather lonely image. An elderly man sat slumped in a wheelchair at the foot of the garden’s vermillion moon bridge. His hands were folded over his belly, and a gardener’s sun hat rested low over his eyes. Chandler wondered if someone had dumped the old man off and driven away. Finding a corpse in a public garden would make for a fine first chapter—if he were writing a British detective novel.

Chandler’s approach woke the old man. The ashen skeletal frame animated jerkily, like a marionette coming to life. A liver-spotted hand managed to push back the hat, permitting a gray, hollow face to peer up from the wheelchair.

“Who goes there?” After gathering himself, he said, “Raymond?”

Chandler halted at his name. His hand reflexively went to the pipe in his mouth, like a cornered cop reaching for his sidearm. “Have we met?”

“It’s me.” The elderly man’s voice gathered volume. “You worked for me at Pacific Oil. Don’t you remember?”

Chandler certainly remembered his time there, although the wrinkled and gray face was not recognizable.

“Your tenure must be a bit of a blur,” the man said with a stiff chuckle. “I’m told your time with us was nothing but a cloud of Gibson lunches and happy hour whiskies. I’m joshing with you, of course.”

The assessment took Chandler aback, but could not argue with it. He wished he could.

“I remember you,” the elderly man said. “You were the sharpest whip on the executive floor. Those others were just collecting their paychecks—Haskill, Collier, phooey on them both. You put in your hours and did your job. When you weren’t out cold on your back, of course.”

“Mr. St. James,” Chandler breathed out in a sudden realization. “You owned the company.”

“I own the whole damn syndicate. Largest oil conglomerate west of the Mississippi, for ’26, ’27, and ’29. Those were fat years, weren’t they, Ray?”

Henry St. James used to come in once a month to open the books and count the pennies and nickels. Back then, St. James had a full head of brown hair and a chest as wide as a wine vat. It was handshakes and back-slapping all around, unless he discovered some of those precious pennies were unaccounted for. Then he would start breathing fire.

“Your pipe.” St. James motioned with an arthritic hand. “May I smell?”

Chandler wafted the bowl beneath St. James’ nose.

“Virginia tobacco?” the old man asked.

“That’s right. Grown in the southern counties.”

“You cannot beat Virginia tobacco.” St. James managed a wistful smile. “I used to smoke a Virginia blend. Place on Beverly Hills Drive made cigarettes for me, special-order. Chopped up the tobacco right there in the store. Had a machine in the back that rolled them up. You selected the paper. They even monogrammed them. Mine had the letters aitch and jay separated by a Latin cross. Henry St. James.” He pushed the pipe away with a reluctant hand. “Now my doctor forbids me from smoking.”

“Get another doctor.”

“You’re right, of course. Oh, I know every drag off the devil’s weed is another day shaved off my life. But I’ve had a good life, and another day or two wouldn’t be missed.”

“How good a life?”

The elderly man managed a wink. “Very good. I’ll tell you a secret of making money. You want to hear it?”

The old man motioned for Chandler to lean down. Chandler obliged. St. James whispered in the writer’s ear: “Buy low, sell high.”

Chandler righted himself. Surely he was being goosed. The old man merely nodded stone-face at Chandler.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Chandler said.

“You want to hear another piece of money advice?”

Chandler leaned down again, to humor the man. St. James whispered to the writer: “Don’t put all your irons in one fire.”

Now he knew he was being played the fool. “Thank you,” he said, and began to search for an exit from the reunion.

“And don’t invest in the movie trade,” St. James counseled. “I lived in Los Angeles long before the actors and directors showed up. They talk like they discovered the place. Fools came rushing in. Of course, I invested in the movies a long time ago.”

“You did?”

“I know a good investment. But never invest in any one movie—horrible idea, just horrible. I invested in the studios. No matter how much one of their movies makes, a dime or a dollar, I get a slice of the first cut, right off the top. Everyone else gets theirs later.”

“So you’re saying I should invest in the studios.”

“You can’t anymore. Those opportunities came and went. No, buy land, I say. I’ve been buying it up for forty years now. After all, they’re not making more of it.”

“They are in San Francisco. If they keep filling in the bay, pretty soon there will be no more ‘Bay’ in the Bay Area.”

“‘Anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.’”

“Oscar Wilde,” Chandler murmured, still looking for a way to exit the conversation. Was this better than a tea party of frills and committee motions?

“The lavender had it backwards,” St. James said with a crinkled smile. “Anyone who wants to disappear says they’re from San Francisco. Do you know why?”

Chandler needed a moment. “Because all the birth records there were destroyed in the earthquake and fire.”

“Exactly.” The old man’s mood darkened. “I should have bought land up there. They don’t take a man’s holdings in San Francisco like they do here.”

Chandler pushed up the brim of his hat, cinched up his trouser legs, and sat on the second step of the moon bridge. Now he was interested.

“Who’s taking your land?”

“Who isn’t taking it? Whenever they plan one of these new ‘motorways,’ they make sure to run it across my property. City wants to build new houses, they draw checkerboard lines across my holdings. Eminent domain here, the public weal there.”

He motioned for Chandler’s ear. The writer humored him for a third time.

“Land rights are oil and water rights,” he whispered. “That’s the real secret of Los Angeles.”

It was an observation worth noting.

Chandler savored his pipe. “The water cooler talk back in the day was that you had a stake in the bootlegging racket.”

“Sure. Oil, water, and Canadian whiskey. You could say I prefer to keep my investments liquid.” He cackled.

“Want another smell?”

“Please.”

Chandler let the man breathe in more wisps from his pipe.

“My memory’s not what it used to be,” St. James said. “I recall they bounced you out of Pacific Oil for boozing. Or was it women?”

“A bit of both.”

“Collier’s wife? Or Haskill’s?”

“Again, both,” Chandler said. “But they were having their way with the other’s wife too. It was the Twenties,” he said, as though that explained everything. “Collier and Haskill weren’t going to fire each other, of course. My tippling gave them cover.”

“You seem to have landed on your feet. Where are you at now?”

It was a tougher admission than the boozing and womanizing. “I, ah…write stories.”

“An up-and-coming Fitzgerald, eh?”

“Mystery stories,” he confessed. “Private eyes. That sort of thing.”

“Mysteries? You’re not speaking of the pulps, are you?”

“I landed a contract for a novel.”

“Raymond,” St. James moaned. “I saw so much potential in you! You have the nose for business, young man.”

“Not so young anymore.”

“Spinning make-believe is a game for bohemians and ne’er-do-wells. You should not be fooling around with—did you say you have a contract? For how many books?”

“One.”

“And did you say murder stories?”

“Private detective.”

“Detective, huh?” St. James’ voice trailed off. “Detective…”

“Mr. St. James?”

The old man had slumped down in his wheelchair. He began mumbling to himself in some ancient language only he understood.

Chandler rose. The reunion had been more bitter than sweet. “Mr. St. James.”

“Yes?”

“I must be going now.”

“One moment. Hold a moment!” St. James straightened himself. “I could use your assistance.”

Once more, Chandler peered around the garden for an exit. Certainly St. James would have come here with a nurse or a chauffeur—

“It’s my niece,” the old man said. “Her name is Zoya.”

“Is she here?” Maybe she could take the old man home.

“No, no, no—she’s gone missing. I can’t locate her. Can you find her for me?”

Chandler stared down at the infirm man as though waiting for a punch line. He finally said, “I’m not a detective. I write about them.”

“But I know you, and I trust you. Everyone who works for me eventually fails me. Money up front, they say, results later. You, though, you will come through for me.” He spoke over Chandler’s continued protests. “It’s not so much. She’s here in Los Angeles. It might be as simple as looking her up in the city directory—”

“Have you looked in a city directory?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” he bleated. “It’s not so simple as that. But I know she’s here. You can find her. I have faith in you. Even if it takes five minutes of your time, I’ll make it worth your while. I only want to see her again.” A pain entered his voice. “She used to visit me whenever I was feeling lonely.”

“How did you contact her before?”

“By telephone. But her number is disconnected now.”

“No forwarding number?”

“Alas, no.”

“You don’t have her street address?”

“How could an old man such as myself obtain such information?”

“You could ask her parents—”

“They are distant relatives. We are no longer on speaking terms.” He waved his hands weakly. “I use the term ‘niece’ loosely.”

As was his wont, Chandler began to do the mental arithmetic. The story had a few holes he instinctually wanted filled.

“How do you know she still lives in Los Angeles?”

“She’s here,” St. James insisted. “She came to Hollywood to make it big. She wants it so badly—”

They all do, every last one. “She’s young, then?”

“Oh, very young and very beautiful. She would make a fine starlet.”

“How do you know she wants to see you again?”

“Listen, listen to me.” St. James tugged at Chandler’s sleeve. “When you find her, you ask her if she wants to see me again. If she says no—” He practically shouted to drown out Chandler’s interruption. “If she says no, tell her I am deeply sorry and will leave her alone. Then you can bring her to me.”

“I’m not a bird terrier—”

“If you do this for me, I will find you a job in my oil syndicate. You can come back, Raymond.” He spoke soothingly, wave upon wave of soothing promises. “All will be as it was before. Collier and Haskill are gone. You’ll answer to me alone.”

Chandler scoffed. “You’re going to make me the president of your oil company?”

“I’ll find you a tidy executive position. Trust me. We need good people like you.”

“In what? Is there any oil still to be had in Southern California?”

“Oh, there’s some down there still. We have pumps in the valley. And more up near San Luis Obispo. Sure, the salad days are behind us. It’s a quieter business now. But a profitable one!”

“My contract—”

“Finish your book. Fulfill your agreement. Enjoy your advance. Then, you can return to Pacific Oil.”

His days in the oil business were days of a thick pocketbook and good living. Back then, he owned two cars when most Americans did not have one. Cissy came from old money. Her family disapproved of their marriage, and cut her off from the family fortune. Back then, Chandler could give her the manner of living she was accustomed to. Today, Chandler’s bank account was an odometer counting down the days he could keep pretending he was a writer.

“What’s the girl’s name?” he asked.

A smile spread across the old man’s face. “Very good. Her name is Zoya. Zoya Antipova.”

The answer only raised more questions, such as why a rich Anglo-Saxon named St. James would be related to a woman of Eastern European descent. What would his private eye do here? What would Marlowe say?

Marlowe would ask the tough questions. He would ask the embarrassing questions. If the client didn’t answer truthfully, Marlowe would tell the client to go to Hell. Chandler was not Marlowe, though.

“How do I reach you?” he asked.

St. James produced a card from a shirt pocket. “No need to use the trades entrance,” he said. “Telephone ahead, all the same.”

“What was your niece’s last known number?”

“My secretary wrote it on the back.”

Sure enough, a Los Angeles telephone exchange and number was written in neat cursive on the back of the card.

Chandler pondered the card for a long moment. “You knew I would be here today, didn’t you?”

“I told you I know how to use a city directory. I know how to ask around. Plus—” St. James waved Chandler close. “Always keep a finger in the pie,” he whispered.

When he returned to the tea party, Chandler kissed Cissy on the cheek.

“Missed you,” he murmured in her ear.

Up close, he was again reminded of her age. Cracks in her thick foundation revealed her wrinkle lines. Soon, she’d be seventy. He was fifty. She needed a nap every day now. Not long, he would too.

How many novels did he have time to write? More than one? And would Cissy be with him when he published his last?

“You smell like an old man.” She waved him off. “Were you drinking?”

“No, dear. Just a stroll through the gardens.”

“Enjoy your walk?”

St. James’ card remained in hand. He stuffed it into a pocket.

“I did not,” and he downed the last of his now-cold tea.

Read more at Chandler & West: A Los Angeles Story