Marlowe is being paid to follow a sad-looking red-head named Eleanor King. Or is she called Betty Mayfield or Mrs Kinsolving? And what is the man with the swift left hook holding over her? Even in a nice little town like Esmerelda theres no shortage of PIs, cops and bellhops to make a case more difficult, and Marlowes overdeveloped sense of justice is getting him into trouble again. Still, at least theres a blonde with a snooty look and a great pair of legs to take the sting out of things. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s Philip Marlowe stalked the tawdry neon wilderness of Southern California. There Raymond Chandlers creation became the most famous fictional detective since Sherlock Holmes; often imitated, never bettered. Read the complete Marlowe novels in Penguin paperback. "Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since." Paul Auster