Three different Raymond Chandler characters from two different novels:

She looked playful and eager, but not quite sure of herself, like a new kitten in a house where they don't care much about kittens. 

I looked back at her from the elevators. She was staring after me with an expression she probably would have said was thoughtful. 

She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight.

If you want a lesson in creating brand-new, never-before-seen stereotypes from weird material, study Ray's work. And nobody does a simile better. Trying to picture Raymond Chandler's similes is like ordering a quinine sandwich from an over-the-hill doll with rueful cigarette poked into the dregs of her jaded lipstick.