The renowned novel from the crime fiction master, with the "quintessential urban private eye" (Los Angeles Times), Philip Marlowe. • Featuring the iconic character that inspired the film Marlowe, starring Liam Neeson. One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years A dying millionaire hires private eye Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, and 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 seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious.” —The New York Times Book Review
In classic noir tradition, English Professor Karen Pelletier gains a client when her office door opens and Trouble walks in. The dog, a Rottweiler, brings with him a famous Private Eye novelist and a problem. And since Sunnye Hardcastle (a Patricia Cornwell lookalike) will be a featured speaker in the English Department’s upcoming conference on the murder mystery (from a Feminist Perspective), Karen is intrigued. The next thing you know, one midnight someone rushes out of the Enfield library with an armload of rare books. In fact, the library is missing a truckload of its treasures. Then a theif is found dead in the stacks, his neck broken. With a real private eye on the case, the hunt is on—for the manuscript of Hammett’s famous novel, The Maltese Falcon, for the missing books, and for potential murder suspects. This sparkling fifth entry in an award-nominated series riffs the hardboiled genre and several sacred icons. What is truth? What is fiction? No one seems certain. Perhaps most frustrated is Karen’s boyfriend, Massachusetts police lieutenant Charlie Piotrowski, a man having trouble dividing his personal and professional life, let alone translating modern academic-speak. But then, don’t we all?
FEATURING THE CHARACTER THAT INSPIRED THE AMC SERIES MONSIEUR SPADE STARRING CLIVE OWEN ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME Detective Sam Spade is a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. When his partner is killed during a stakeout, he is drawn into the hunt for a fantastic treasure with a dubious provenance—a golden bird encrusted with jewels. Also on the trail are a perfumed grifter named Joel Cairo, an oversized adventurer named Gutman, and Spade’s new client Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett’s coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted generations of readers. *With a new introduction by Richard Russo*
