The Big Sleep and Other Novels: (Penguin Modern Classics)

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.

Contains the author's three Philip Marlowe novels, The Lady in the Lake , The High Window and The Little Sister .

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.

Three celebrated novels, 'The Maltese Falcon', 'The Thin Man' and 'Red Harvest'.

'An acknowledged literary landmark' Robert Graves

A tribute to Philip Marlowe, the quintessential American detective. He likes booze, women, and working alone, portrayed on film by the rougher, tougher stars of Hollywood, but, in a world defined by betrayal, mistrust, and double-dealing, Marlowe's rough exterior belies an unshakeable code of honour.

The classic tale of an evil woman motivated by greed who corrupts a weak man motivated by lust. Walter Huff is an insurance investigator like any other until the day he meets the beautiful and dangerous Phyllis Nirdlinger and falls under her spell. Together they plot to kill her husband and split the insurance.

Philip Marlowe's on a case: his client wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband's collection. It becomes complicated when Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead.

This collection brings together the very best of Dashiell Hammett's early stories featuring the Continental Op, the dispassionate fat man working for the Continental Detective Agency whose only interest is in doing his job in a world of violence, passion, desperate action and great excitement.

Now available in Everyman Classics.