Send us a text

Farewell, My Lovely (1940) by Raymond Chandler is a cornerstone of the noir genre and the Philip Marlowe books, showcasing Marlowe in one of his most memorable cases. The novel’s richly atmospheric prose vividly captures the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles, immersing readers in its gritty, dangerous world. Chandler’s exploration of moral ambiguity and flawed characters adds depth to the mystery, elevating it beyond a simple whodunit.

With its sharp dialogue, intricate plotting, and evocative style, the book solidified Chandler’s reputation as a master of noir and influenced generations of crime writers.

Get your book here!
Watch clips from our conversations with guests!
Join our Patreon community here! It's free to join, with extra perks for members at every level.

Owen Hill joins Tea, Tonic & Toxin to discuss Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler.

Owen is a novelist and a poet, and The Giveaway: The Clay Blackburn Story, an omnibus of his crime fiction, was recently published by PM Press. It includes three novels and a short story. Owen coedited The Annotated Big Sleep (Vintage, 2018) with Pamela Jackson and Anthony Dean Rizzuto.

Owen Hill joined us as our guest to discuss Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler. Owen is the author of three crime novels, two books of short fiction, and many collections of poetry. He has reviewed crime novels for the Los Angeles Times and the East Bay Express.

In 2005, Owen Hill was awarded the Howard Moss residency at Yaddo. He is co-editor (with Jerry Thompson) of Berkeley Noir for Akashic Press. A memoir, Hands on a Mirror, is also available from Bootstrap Press.

Owen was a buyer at a second-hand bookstore for many years in Berkeley. He is currently an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He lives in Oakland.

Owen Hill is also the author of The Giveaway: The Clay Blackburn Story (PM Press), an omnibus of his crime fiction. It includes three novels and a short story.

Clay Blackburn—poet, book scout, and sometimes detective—cruises the mean, and sometimes not so mean, streets of Berkeley. With his accomplices, a soldier of fortune, a “defrocked” FBI agent, and a smooth and sexy con man, he lives a life of bisexual sensation with a little crime solving on the side. As such, Blackburn is a sly, witty, and more or less reliable raconteur of the last thirty something years of the Bay Area’s radical bohemia and bookselling.

And in the tradition of Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh, and Jean-Claude Izzo’s Marseilles, bears uncomfortable witness to Berkeley’s descent from countercultural paradise to neoliberal inferno.

This omnibus collection collects the novels The Chandler Apartments (2002), The Incredible Double (2010), and the previously unpublished Mayakovsky’s Bugatti (2025), and includes the Blackburn short story “Righteous Kill” (2021).

Support the show

https://www.instagram.com/teatonicandtoxin/
https://www.facebook.com/teatonicandtoxin
https://www.teatonicandtoxin.com

Stay mysterious...

Send us a text

Farewell, My Lovely (1940) by Raymond Chandler is a cornerstone of the noir genre and the Philip Marlowe books, showcasing Marlowe in one of his most memorable cases. The novel’s richly atmospheric prose vividly captures the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles, immersing readers in its gritty, dangerous world. Chandler’s exploration of moral ambiguity and flawed characters adds depth to the mystery, elevating it beyond a simple whodunit.

With its sharp dialogue, intricate plotting, and evocative style, the book solidified Chandler’s reputation as a master of noir and influenced generations of crime writers.

Get your book here!
Watch clips from our conversations with guests!
Join our Patreon community here! It's free to join, with extra perks for members at every level.

Owen Hill joins Tea, Tonic & Toxin to discuss Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler.

Owen is a novelist and a poet, and The Giveaway: The Clay Blackburn Story, an omnibus of his crime fiction, was recently published by PM Press. It includes three novels and a short story. Owen coedited The Annotated Big Sleep (Vintage, 2018) with Pamela Jackson and Anthony Dean Rizzuto.

Let’s Talk About the Philip Marlowe Books

Insubordination: Marlowe is 33 and went to college once. He’s a bit of a cynic, and his manners are bad. He was fired for insubordination. “I test very high on insubordination.” (The Big Sleep)

American hero: “Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious” (NYT Book Review).

A detective always has a code: “Marlowe is Prometheus [of American myth]: the noble outsider, sacrificing and enduring for a code he alone upholds.” [The Annotated Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler (eds. Owen Hill, Pamela Jackson, and Anthony Rizzuto)]

Tough guy: He’s tough, clever, and a good judge of character. He’s brash and witty.

At his tiny apartment, he goes to a chessboard on a card table. “There was a problem laid out on the board, a six-mover. I couldn’t solve it, like a lot of my problems” (The Big Sleep ch. 24).

In the Philip Marlowe books, Marlowe doesn’t have a backstory, a love interest, or family drama.

“Look,” I said. “This room is eighteen floors above ground. And this little bug climbs all the way up here just to make a friend. Me. My luck piece.” I folded the bug carefully into the soft part of the handkerchief and tucked the handkerchief into my pocket. Randall was pie-eyed. His mouth moved, but nothing came out of it.

“I wonder whose lucky piece Marriott was,” I said.

“Not yours, pal.” [Randall’s] voice was acid—cold acid.

“Perhaps not yours either.” My voice was just a voice. I went out of the room and shut the door.

I rode the express elevator down to the Spring Street entrance and walked out on the front porch of City Hall and down some steps and over to the flower beds. I put the pink bug down carefully behind a bush.

I wondered, in the taxi goin

Support the show

https://www.instagram.com/teatonicandtoxin/
https://www.facebook.com/teatonicandtoxin
https://www.teatonicandtoxin.com

Stay mysterious...

Send us a text

Arvind Ethan David joins Tea, Tonic & Toxin to discuss Trouble Is My Business by Raymond Chandler.

Arvind is a writer and and producer who tells stories and builds accidental businesses around them.

Most recently, he released Douglas Adams: The Ends of the Earth (Pushkin). The Boy with Wings (based on Sir Lenny Henry’s book) premiered in summer 2025 at The Polka Theatre London.

Get your gorgeous illustrated book here! And check out the rest of our storefront for more by Arvind and our other guests.
Watch clips from our conversations with guests!

What an interview! Arvind Ethan David joined Carolyn Daughters and Sarah Harrison to discuss Trouble Is My Business, a new graphic novel version of Raymond Chandler’s classic tale. We could have talked to him for hours!

Arvind Ethan David is a Stoker Award nominated graphic novelist who has also written chart-topping audiodramas (The Crimes of Dorian Gray, Earworms), television (Anansi Boys), and plays (The Boy with Wings). Arvind is also a producer of film and theater, including the Emmy & Grammy award winning musical Jagged Little Pill.

Arvind’s career as a writer and producer started when he adapted the Douglas Adams novel Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency as a college play. The great science fiction author came to see it and took the young writer under his wing. (Years later, Arvind brought Dirk Gently to a global audience as a Netflix/AMC TV series.)

Since then, Arvind has written for page, stage, screen, audio and everywhere else one can tell a story. In addition to Trouble is my Business, his graphic novels include the Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency series (also with art by Ilias Kyriazis), Darkness Visible (Stoker nominated, written with Mike Carey) and Gray, his reimagining of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Arvind’s audio work includes the chart-topping Audible Originals: The Neil Gaiman at the End of the Universe, the science fiction Anthology series Earworms and The Crimes of Dorian Gray.

Arvind Ethan David also works in television, including serving as an Executive Producer on Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency for Netflix and BBC America and writing on Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys for Amazon Studios.

His theater experience includes writing the stage adaptations of the Douglas Adams novels Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (with James Goss) and Lenny Henry’s The Boy with Wings. He is also a lead producer of the Tony & Grammy winning musical Jagged Little Pill.

Arvind Ethan David runs Prodigal, an entertainment business, with producer Tarquin Pack (KICKASS, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, STARDUST) and entrepreneur Scott Kay. Together, they work across TV, film, theater, publishing, gaming, and escape rooms — anywhere there is a good story to be told.

Trouble Is My Business is a new graphic novel by Raymond Chandler and Arvind Ethan David. The book is illustrated by Ilias Kyriazis. The forward was written by Ben H. Winters. The colorist is Cris Peter.

Support the show

https://www.instagram.com/teatonicandtoxin/
https://www.facebook.com/teatonicandtoxin
https://www.teatonicandtoxin.com

Stay mysterious...