In The Simple Art of Murder, which was prefaced by the famous Atlantic Monthly essay of the same name, noir master Raymond Chandler argues the virtues of the hard-boiled detective novel, and this collection, mostly drawn from stories he wrote for the pulps, demonstrates Chandler s imaginative, entertaining facility with the form. Included are the classic stories Spanish Blood, Pearls Are a Nuisance, and Guns at Cyrano s, among others.