Philip Marlowe Series 1-2

Raymond Chandler’s first two Philip Marlowe novels introduce one of crime fiction’s most iconic detectives—a solitary, sharp-tongued private eye navigating the moral decay of Los Angeles.

In The Big Sleep, Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood to stop a blackmail attempt against his wild daughter, Carmen. What begins as a routine job spirals into a labyrinth of murder, corruption, and betrayal involving gamblers, pornographers, and family secrets. As Marlowe delves deeper, he becomes both investigator and moral witness, holding to his integrity amid a world steeped in vice.

In Farewell, My Lovely, Marlowe’s search for a missing ex-con’s girlfriend leads him into the city’s dark underworld of crooked cops, gangsters, and deceptive femmes fatales. The novel expands Chandler’s vision of Los Angeles as glamorous yet rotten at its core.

Across both books, Chandler’s poetic, hard-boiled prose and Marlowe’s sardonic humanity redefine detective fiction—transforming pulp mystery into a bleak, lyrical portrait of honor in a corrupt world.