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.

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.

A collection of novels including The Big Sleep , Farewell My Lovely , and The Long Goodbye .

Los Angeles PI Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is given the squeeze by a blackmailer and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. But with Sternwood's two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets, Marlowe's got his work cut out.

Derace Kingsley's wife ran away to Mexico to get a divorce and marry a Casanova-wannabe named Chris Lavery. Or so the note she left her husband insisted. Trouble is, when Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything and sends the private investigator packing with a flea. But when Marlowe next encounters Lavery, he's denying nothing.

Derace Kingsley's wife ran away to Mexico to get a divorce and marry a Chris Lavery. Trouble is, when Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything and sends the private investigator packing with a flea lodged firmly in his ear. But when Marlowe encounters Lavery, he's denying nothing on account of the two bullet holes in his heart.

LA PI Philip Marlowe is offered a job that leaves a bad taste in the mouth: smearing a girl who's 'got her hooks into a rich man's pup'. Before too long Marlowe's up to his neck in corpses and cops and he's taken pity on the girl.

Her name is Orfamay and she's come all the way from Manhattan to find her missing brother Orrin. Or least ways that's what she tells PI Marlowe, offering him a measly twenty bucks for the privilege. Orrin's trail leads Marlowe to luscious movie starlets, uppity gangsters, suspicious cops and corpses with ice picks jammed in their necks.

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.

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.

Presenting the fast talking, trouble seeking Californian private eye Philip Marlowe's entanglement with the Sternwood family - and an attendant cast of colourful underworld figures as the background, this story reflects the tarnished glitter of the great American Dream.

Derace Kingsley's wife ran away to Mexico to get a divorce and marry a Casanova-wannabe named Chris Lavery. Or so the note she left her husband insisted. When Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything and sends the private investigator packing with a flea. But when Marlowe next encounters Lavery, he's denying nothing.

It was in the pulp detective magazines of the 1930s that the author's definitive take on the hard-boiled detective story first appeared. This book features eight of his finest stories including The Man Who Liked Dogs , The Lady in the Lake and Bay City Blues .

Phillip Marlowe is mixing business with pleasure - getting paid to follow a mysterious and lovely red-head named Eleanor King. And wherever Miss King goes, trouble seems to follow. But one dead body later and what started out as a lazy afternoon's snooping soon becomes a deadly cocktail of blackmail, lies, mistaken identity - and murder.

Contemporary / American English (Available February 2008) Detective Philip Marlowe is looking for Derace Kingsley's wife, Crystal. Is she dead or not? Marlowe finds more than one dead body and learns about women, drugs, men in love, and a police cover-up. Who killed The Lady in the Lake and why?