Raymond Chandler at 120

In honor of Raymond Chandler’s 120th birthday yesterday, Carolyn Kellogg at Jacket Copy asked a slew of folks, including Tod Goldberg, the Mystery Bookstore’s Bobby McCue, Denise Hamilton and yours truly, to send birthday greetings and gifts to the hardboiled legend:

Goldberg: “I like to give people presents they can use, so I’d probably give

Chandler a shovel and a pick-axe, which would be useful in getting out

of the grave and for beating to death all the people — including this

one — who’ve ripped him off over the years. I suspect Chandler would

also find it very odd to go into a Barnes & Noble and find that

every mid-list crime novelist is being compared to him, and usually

favorably, in their jacket copy. In fact, I don’t know a single crime

writer (including members of my family!) who’ve not been called

Chandleresque, which makes me think most people haven’t really read

much Raymond Chandler.”

Judith Freeman, author of THE LONG EMBRACE: RAYMOND CHANDLER AND THE WOMAN HE LOVED:  “A night with Cissy. And of course red roses.”

There’s more in the comments, too.