About fifteen years ago I was working in London and one of my colleagues leant me a book to read. It was by an American author whose work had, at that time, only been published and distributed in the USA.
The central character narrated in first person similar in style to Raymond Chandler.
There was a scene where he was working in a seedy bar/café that stands out in my memory- he had to clean dirty Venetian blinds in a bath.
I’m pretty sure that they were published late C20th and were fairly niche.