Mike Dime

Terrific parody of Chandler that is often better than the real thing. Mike Dime drives around town trying to solve murder on the eve of the 1948 election. Here's a sample of the prose:"She was in her late forties and her figure was spreading faster than spilled milk. A lot of her was almost into a peg-top velveteen skirt with slits that were too long and a frothy organdy blouse that needed buttoning. Her face was the color of uncooked bread, her lips were large and puffy and painted with less care than drunks count change.""If Frenchy had something to say, I didn?t hear it. Someone else was making noise. It was Mrs. Summers. She had pulled herself from the sofa and was running the length of the room toward the window. She was screaming at the top of her cracked voice. Her housecoat billowed like an open parachute as clenched her fists and smashed headlong into the glass. It splintered into a thousand angular fragments and let the falling woman through.""The scream died on the air as Frank Summers widow took the short way down to the sidewalk ten floors below. For a second that lasted an hour we all stood open-mouthed, gaping at the jagged edges of the hole in the window, which rose and fell like the Himalayas, their peaks capped with glistening blood."