<div class="col"> <p>Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at age forty-four, Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression.</p> </div> <div class="col"> <p>Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth in progress at his death was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but Playback have been made into motion pictures, some several times. In the year before he died, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America.</p> </div>
