Tour keeps spirit of Raymond Chandler's LA alive (AP)

Tour. I had decided to learn whether L.A. really is, as Chandler's hard-bitten detective Philip Marlowe once said, "just a big dry sunny place with ugly homes and no style." To find out, I would have to get as close to the source as possible. Just like Marlowe had done in "Farewell, My Lovely," when he picked up that hat and coat, strapped on that gun and passed through the mansions, the dive bars and the "dine and dice emporiums" of this gaudy city in search of a deadly redhead named Velma.

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The source, of course, couldn't be Chandler himself. L.A.'s literary legend had died 50 years earlier. Now, like Joe Brody in " The Big Sleep ," he was at rest in a modest grave in a San Diego cemetery . No, the man to see would be Richard Schave, the guy standing by the front of the bus, the one in the snap-brim fedora, gaudy blue vest and white shirt.

Full Story: Tour keeps spirit of Raymond Chandler's LA alive (AP)