All she did was take her hand out of her bag, with a gun in it. All she did was point it at me and smile. All did was nothing...Moose Malloy stepped out of the dressing room, with the Colt .45 still looking like a toy in his big hairy paw.

When a dying millionaire hires Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.
"Chandler [writes] like a slumming angel and invest[s] the sun-blinded streets of Los Angelos with a romantic presence."
--Ross Macdonald