'Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph A classic Philip Marlowe adventure by Raymond Chandler, author of The Big Sleep and undisputed master of hard-boiled crimeDerace Kingsley's wife ran away to Mexico to get a quickie 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 lodged firmly in his ear. 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 LA all the way to a murky mountain lake . . .'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