There are several literary allusions in The Old Dick, including references to Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" and to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949), but the tradition in which Morse works in the novel owes a great deal to mystery writers in general and to Raymond Chandler in particular. At one point Spanner realizes that he is in a situation straight out of Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely (1940), and he soon realizes that his recognition of the parallel is more precise than he might have wished. Like Chandler, Morse describes the seamier side of life in Los Angeles from the point of view of a detective whose associations are almost exclusively with the less savory elements of the city, and Spanner's character tends to exaggerate several features of Chandler's Philip Marlowe as well as of Spillane's Mike Hammer.

Dashiell Hammett's influence...