'I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room'Cynical Los Angeles Private Investigator Philip Marlowe always falls for a sob story. Eight years ago Moose Malloy and cute little redhead Velma were getting married - until Malloy was framed for armed robbery. Now he's out and he wants Velma back. Marlowe meets Malloy one hot day in Hollywood and, out of the generosity of his jaded heart, agrees to help. Dragged from one smoky bar to another, Marlowe's search for Velma turns up plenty of gangsters with a nasty habit of shooting first and talking later. And soon what started as a search for a missing person becomes a matter of life and death . . .Farewell, My Lovely is Raymond Chandler's second novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe.'Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess