TARANTULAS AND ANGEL FOOD CAKES REVISITED. I posted here on Raymond Chandler’s observation in FAREWELL, MY LOVELY that Moose Malloy walking in an ordinary Los Angeles neighborhood was as out of place as a tarantula on a piece of angel food cake. Auden’s argument that the detective story is about guilt invading an innocent society suggests that Chandler’s comparison is a metaphor for detective stories: a detective story deals with a tarantula on a piece of angel food cake.