THE BIG SLEEP

THE HIGH WINDOW

'He lay crumpled on his back. Very lonely, very dead. The safe door was wide open. A metal drawer was pulled out. It was empty now. There may have been money in it once.' Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe's on a case: his client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband's collection. That's the simple part. It becomes more complicated when Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead. That's also unlucky for a private investigator, because leaving a trail of corpses around LA puts cops' noses seriously out of joint. If Marlowe doesn't wrap this one up fast, he's going to end up either in jail or in a wooden box in the ground.

THE LADY IN THE LAKE

A BBC Radio 4 Dramatisation featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe. Derace Kingsley's wife ran away to Mexico to get a divorce and marry a Casanova-wannabe named Chris Lavery. But when Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything and sends the private investigator packing. When Marlowe next encounters Lavery, he's denying nothing - on account of the two bullet holes in his heart. Now Marlowe's on the trail of a killer, who leads him out of smoggy LA all the way to a murky mountain lake . . .

THE LADY IN THE LAKE

Brought to you by Penguin. 'Everything was quiet and sunny and calm. No cause for excitement whatever. It's only Marlowe finding another body. He does it rather well by now. Murder-a-day Marlowe they call him . . .' Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired to find a missing woman. Derace Kingsley's wife ran away to Mexico to get a divorce and marry a hunk named Chris Lavery. Or so the note she left her husband says. Trouble is when Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything. But when Marlowe next encounters Lavery he's denying nothing - on account of the two bullet holes in his heart. Now Marlowe's on the trail of a killer who leads him out of smoggy Los Angeles all the way to a murky mountain lake . . .

THE LITTLE SISTER

'So you need help. What's your name and trouble?' Private Investigator Philip Marlowe's latest client is Orfamay Quest. She's come all the way from Manhattan Kansas to find her missing brother Orrin. Or at least that's what she tells Marlowe offering him just twenty dollars for his trouble. Feeling charitable Marlowe accepts - though it's not long before he wishes he hadn't. Soon the trail leads to a succession of Hollywood starlets uppity gangsters suspicious cops and corpses with ice picks jammed into their necks . . . The Little Sister is Raymond Chandler's fifth novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe.

THE LONG GOOD-BYE

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: private investigator Philip Marlowe. He is willing to help a man down on his luck, but later Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty. Marlowe is drawn into a sordid crowd of adulterers and alcoholics in LA's Idle Valley, where the rich are suffering one big suntanned hangover. Marlowe is sure Lennox didn't kill his wife, but how many more stiffs will turn up before he gets to the truth?

PLAYBACK

Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is mixing business with pleasure - he's getting paid to follow a lovely mysterious redhead called Eleanor King. And wherever Miss King goes trouble is sure to follow. But she's easy on the eye and Marlowe's happy to do as he's told. 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 . . .