I am a huge Chandler (and Hammett) fan. If you like that sort of thing highly recommend reading all of it, starting with short stories (both authors have proto versions of their later Novel length protagonists, either unnamed it differently named).
Marlowe is the more developed character (compared to Spade). Chandler described him in a famous quote: “down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”
Marlow has his own moral code but he lives in a tough and grimy and complex Los Angeles where the cops are often as dirty and violent as the criminals. Marlow is not above using violence, and even killing people; if the new show depicts him as a bully or a thug they will have it wrong, but if they show him kicking the shit out of a few guys who he thinks deserve it, or shooting someone who is trying to stop him from his Knight’s quest, that would be about right.
Robert Parker’s Spenser is in the mode of Marlow (though Spenser is a more socialized and civilized and watered down version, with a Black friend and a psychotherapist GF). Parker was given permission by the Chandler estate to complete and unfinished Chandler novel.
Bogie will always be my favorite, but there are other good Marlowe’s out there (Robert Mitchum and James Garner).
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