The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor-by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life, he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr, I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin, if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things.
-Raymond Chandler,
The Simple Art of Murder, 1950