Christmas has never been a particularly good time for Dr Kay Scarpetta. Although a holiday for most, the festivities always seem to heighten the alienation felt by society's violent fringe; and that usually means more work for Scarpetta, Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner and consulting forensic pathologist for the FBI. Read More...

Marlowe was neat and clean and sober when he called at the Sternwood residence. He liked to be all those things when he was calling on four million dollars. Read More...

The first time that Marlowe met Terry Lennox, the man was drunk. The second time he was even drunker than the first. Read More...

Killer in the Rain gathers together eight Chandler stories of crime and suspense, violence and tragedy set against the backcloth of 'that hard-boiled city with no more personality than a paper cup.' Read More...

The client was called Derace Kingsley. He had a voice you could have cracked a brazil nut on and a wife he'd not seen for a month. He'd got a telegram that talked about a Mexico divorce and he wanted Marlowe to take it up from there. Read More...

Mrs Elizabeth Bright Murdock wanted to hire a reliable detective to find a rare coin she had lost. She knew who had stolen it but, as she told Philip Marlowe, she wanted to keep the information a purely family matter. Read More...

Full of glitter and tension, the four stories in this collection are vintage Chandler, set in the smoke-filled bars and condos of Los Angeles city where 'The streets are dark with something more than night...' Read More...

Walter Gage is hired by his fiancée to find Mrs Penruddock's stolen pink pearls. His investigations need to be discreet because it would be embarrassing if word gets out that they're fakes ... Read More...

So John Dalmas is hired to smear a girl, a gold-digging lady with bedroom eyes. Forerunner of Philip Marlowe, like the other private eyes in these five stories, Dalmas is tough-talking and soft-centred - and trouble is his business. Read More...

When Ellie Pascoe finds herself under threat, the men in her life assume it's because she's married to a cop. But while they trawl after shoals of red herrings, Ellie is blasted off course with a motley crew of women on a voyage of discovery whose perils make Scylla and Charybdis look like a pair of Barbie dolls. Read More...