Long Good-bye (Penguin Books)

The Long Good-bye is a classic novel by Raymond Chandler, the master of hard-boiled crime. 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.

Marlowe finds himself 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? "Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence".

(Daily Telegraph). "One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain". (Sunday Times). "Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes".

(Anthony Burgess). Best-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959.Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction.

His books include The Big Sleep, The Little Sister, Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Good-bye, The Lady in the Lake, Playback, Killer in the Rain, The High Window and Trouble is My Business.