Published on the centenary of Jim Thompson's birth, THE KILLER INSIDE ME has been an underground classic since its first publication in 1952.

Her name is Orfamay Quest and she's come all the way from Manhattan, Kansas, to find her missing brother Orrin. Or least ways that's what she tells PI Philip Marlowe, offering him a measly twenty bucks for the privilege. But Marlowe's feeling charitable though it's not long before he wishes he wasn't so sweet.

Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. Marlowe's got his work cut out. But that's before he stumbles over the first corpse.

A warm day on Central Avenue, and Philip Marlowe's hunch about the man beside him is as vague as the heat waves that dance above the sidewalk. Moose Malloy stands six five and one-half and weighs two hundred and sixty-four pounds. After eight years in the pen, he wants little Velma back, and no cops or mobsters are ready to stand in his way.

Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to his only friend in the world: Philip Marlowe, Private Investigator. He's willing to help a man down on his luck, but later, Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty.

The greatest crime novel of the 20th century launches Orion's Crime Masterworks series