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Starring Ed Bishop as Philip Marlowe

Raymond Chandler: A BBC Radio Collection

A collection of BBC Radio dramatisations of classic Raymond Chandler novels starring Ed Bishop as detective Philip Marlowe

They never came tougher than Marlowe, a cynical, world-weary, wise-cracking shamus whose honesty in a dishonest world sent him down the mean streets again and again in search of some kind of justice. 
 
Ed Bishop stars as Philip Marlowe in these powerfully atmospheric BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of Raymond Chandler's novels. 
 
The Big Sleep 
General Sternwood's daughters came in both the colours of trouble - blonde and brunette - and they had all the usual vices. With four million dollars behind them, blackmail was only a matter of time. And blackmail can be murder. 
 
The High Window 
Linda Conquest was very tough, very kissable and very missing, along with one very valuable old coin. But soon Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead. 
 
The Lady in the Lake 
Blonde, beautiful and wild, Crystal Kingsley had never been the faithful little wife. But when she goes missing for a month, and then a woman’s body surfaces in an isolated mountain lake, murder-a-day Marlowe is back in business. 
 
The Little Sister 
Marlowe is on the case of a missing brother from a two-bit Kansas town, who had the embarrassing habit of knowing guys who finished up on the wrong end of an ice-pick. Until, that is, he did too. 
 
The Long Goodbye 
Terry Lennox seemed like a nice guy. Okay, he was a drunk but maybe that could happen to anyone with too much money, too much time and a wife who played the field in a big way. Trouble was, when she ended up dead, it wasn't money that got Lennox to Mexico. It was Marlowe. 
 
Farewell My Lovely 
At six feet five, Moose Malloy is a big man who looks about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food – and about as dangerous. His girl Velma disappeared eight years ago, and now he wants to find her. 
 
Also included in a BBC Radio archive discussion, in which Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming discuss thrillers and talk about their respective heroes: Philip Marlowe and James Bond. 
 
Originally broadcast between 1977 and 1988, these dramatisations also star Don Fellows and Robert Beatty. They were adapted by Bill Morrison and produced by John Tydeman. 
 
These are archive dramatisations of the original novels published between 1939 and 1953, and the language used reflects some of the attitudes of those times.

Playback

The classic Chandler mystery - reissued now in B format

Playback is Raymond Chandler's gripping last full-length novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe. 
 
'Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since' Paul Auster 
 
Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is mixing business with pleasure - he's getting paid to follow a lovely mysterious redhead called Eleanor King. And wherever Miss King goes, trouble is sure to follow. But she's easy on the eye and Marlowe's happy to do as he's told. But one dead body later and what started out as a lazy afternoon's snooping soon becomes a deadly cocktail of blackmail, lies, mistaken identity - and murder . . . 
 
 
'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

Best-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction.

Stalking the tawdry neon wilderness of forties and fifties Los Angeles, Raymond Chandler's hard-drinking, wise-cracking Phillip Marlowe is one of the world's most famous fictional detectives. 
 
'Playback' finds Marlowe mixing business with pleasure - getting paid to follow a mysterious and lovely red-head named Eleanor King. And wherever Miss King goes, trouble seems to follow. But she's easy on the eye and Marlowe's happy to do as he's told, all in the name of chivalry, of course. But one dead body later and what started out as a lazy afternoon's snooping soon becomes a deadly cocktail of blackmail, lies, mistaken identity - and murder . . .

Trouble is My Business

'I need a man good-looking enough to pick up a dame who has a sense of class, but he's got to be tough enough to swap punches with a power shovel.' 
 
In the first of the four cases in Trouble is My Business, Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is offered a job that leaves a bad taste in the mouth: smearing a girl who's 'got her hooks into a rich man's pup'. Before too long Marlowe's up to his neck in corpses and cops and he's taken pity on the girl. There's nothing like making trouble out of your business . . . 
 
The four novellas collected here are quintessential Raymond Chandler: slick, crystal-clear writing that pins the reader to the seat and won't let go until the last page is turned. 
 
'Age does not wither Chandler's prose' Literary Review 
 
'Chandler's prose flies off the pages like a burst from a Tommy gun. Chandler was perhaps the finest exponent of the fledgling genre now known as pulp fiction' Scottish Field 
 
'One of the greatest crime writers, who set the standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 
 
'Nobody can write like Chandler on his home turf, not even Faulkner . . . An original . . . A great artist' Boston Review 
 
'Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since' Paul Auster 
 
Discover the newest addition to the inimitable Philip Marlowe series - Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne - out 6 September 2018 in hardback and ebook from Hogarth.

In the first of the four cases in Trouble is My Business, LA PI Philip Marlowe is offered a job that leaves a bad taste in the mouth: smearing a girl who's 'got her hooks into a rich man's pup'. Before too long Marlowe's up to his neck in corpses and cops and he's taken pity on the girl. There's nothing like making trouble of your business . . . 
 
The four novellas collected here are quintessential Raymond Chandler: slick, crystal-clear writing that pins the reader to the seat and won't let go until the last page is turned.

The High Window

A CLASSIC NOVEL BY THE MASTER OF HARD-BOILED CRIME, THE HIGH WINDOW IS RAYMOND CHANDLER'S THIRD STORY FEATURING LACONIC PI PHILIP MARLOWE. 
 
'He lay crumpled on his back. Very lonely, very dead. The safe door was wide open. A metal drawer was pulled out. It was empty now. There may have been money in it once.' 
 
Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe's on a case: his client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband's collection. That's the simple part. It becomes more complicated when Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead. That's also unlucky for a private investigator, because leaving a trail of corpses around LA puts cops' noses seriously out of joint. If Marlowe doesn't wrap this one up fast, he's going to end up either in jail or in a wooden box in the ground . . . 
 
'Chandler's books should be read and judged, not as escapist literature, but as works of art' W.H. Auden 
 
'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

Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious

Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since

Raymond Chandler is a star of the first magnitude

[T]he prose rises to heights of unselfconscious eloquence, and we realize with a jolt of excitement that we are in the presence of not a mere action tale teller, but a stylist, a writer with a vision

Philip Marlowe remains the quintessential urban private eye

Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence

Nobody can write like Chandler on his home turf, not even Faulkner. . . A great artist

Best-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959.  Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction.

Philip Marlowe's on a case: his client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband's collection. That's the simple part. It becomes more complicated when Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead. That's also unlucky for a private investigator, because leaving a trail of corpses around LA gets cops' noses out of joint. If Marlowe doesn't wrap this one up fast, he's going to end up in jail - or worse, in a box in the ground . . .

Killer in the Rain

From the creased pages of 1930s pulp magazines Black Mask and Dime Detective come eight of Raymond Chandler's finest short stories: 
 
KILLER IN THE RAIN, THE MAN WHO LIKED DOGS, THE CURTAIN, TRY THE GIRL, MANDARIN'S JADE, BAY CITY BLUES, THE LADY IN THE LAKE and NO CRIME IN THE MOUNTAINS 
 
Set against a Southern Californian backdrop, the stories are rich with suspense, violence and tragedy, and each comes laced with booze, bullets and a detective with an eye for a damsel in distress and an even keener eye for justice . . . 
 
Readers will also recognize episodes, characters and flashbacks from the Marlowe novels that made Chandler the undisputed master of his genre. 
 
'Anything he writes about grips the mind from the first sentence. It is a spare, finished performance: full of life and character: as tense as a tiger, springing into action' 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

It was in the pulp detective magazines of the 1930s that Raymond Chandler's definitive take on the hard-boiled detective story first appeared. Here then, from the well-thumbed pages of 'Black Mask' and 'Dime Detective Magazine', are eight of his finest stories including 'The Man Who Liked Dogs', 'The Lady in the Lake' and 'Bay City Blues'. Sharper than a hoodlum's switchblade, more exciting than an unexpected red-head and stronger than a double shot of whisky, they are packed full of the punchy poetry and laconic wit that makes Chandler the undisputed master of his genre.

The Big Sleep

'I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.' 
 
Los Angeles Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wheelchair-bound General Sternwood to discover who is blackmailing him. A broken, weary old man, Sternwood just wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. However, with Sternwood's two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets, Marlowe's got his work cut out. And that's before he stumbles over the first corpse. 
 
The Big Sleep is Raymond Chandler's first novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe. 
 
'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 
 
'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 
 
Discover the newest addition to the inimitable Philip Marlowe series - Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne - out 6 September 2018 in hardback and ebook from Hogarth.

[T]he prose rises to heights of unselfconscious eloquence, and we realize with a jolt of excitement that we are in the presence of not a mere action tale teller, but a stylist, a writer with a vision

Philip Marlowe remains the quintessential urban private eye

Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. But with Sternwood's two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets, Marlowe's got his work cut out - and that's before he stumbles over the first corpse ...

The Lady in the Lake

'Everything was quiet and sunny and calm. No cause for excitement whatever. It's only Marlowe, finding another body. He does it rather well by now. Murder-a-day Marlowe, they call him . . .' 
 
Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired to find a missing woman. Derace Kingsley's wife ran away to Mexico to get a divorce and marry a hunk named Chris Lavery. Or so the note she left her husband says. Trouble is, when Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything. But when Marlowe next encounters Lavery, he's denying nothing - on account of the two bullet holes in his heart. Now Marlowe's on the trail of a killer, who leads him out of smoggy Los Angeles all the way to a murky mountain lake . . . 
 
The Lady in the Lake is Raymond Chandler's fourth novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe. 
 
'Chandler's best novels carry the crime story to levels of artistry that have rarely been matched' Daily Mail 
 
'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

Derace Kingsley's wife ran away to Mexico to get a quickie divorce and marry a Casanova-wannabe named Chris Lavery. Or so the note she left her husband insisted. Trouble is, when Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything and sends the private investigator packing with a flea lodged firmly in his ear. But when Marlowe next encounters Lavery, he's denying nothing - on account of the two bullet holes in his heart. Now Marlowe's on the trail of a killer, who leads him out of smoggy LA all the way to a murky mountain lake . . .

The Little Sister

'So you need help. What's your name and trouble?' 
 
Private Investigator Philip Marlowe's latest client is Orfamay Quest. She's come all the way from Manhattan, Kansas, to find her missing brother Orrin. Or at least that's what she tells Marlowe, offering him just twenty dollars for his trouble. Feeling charitable, Marlowe accepts - though it's not long before he wishes he hadn't. Soon the trail leads to a succession of Hollywood starlets, uppity gangsters, suspicious cops and corpses with ice picks jammed into their necks . . . 
 
The Little Sister is Raymond Chandler's fifth novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe. 
 
'Marlowe remains the quintessential urban private eye' Los Angeles Times 
 
'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 
 
Discover the newest addition to the inimitable Philip Marlowe series - Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne - out 6 September 2018 in hardback and ebook from Hogarth.

Her name is Orfamay Quest and she's come all the way from Manhattan, Kansas, to find her missing brother Orrin. Or leastways that's what she tells PI Philip Marlowe, offering him a measly twenty bucks for the privilege. But Marlowe's feeling charitable - though it's not long before he wishes he wasn't so sweet. You see, Orrin's trail leads Marlowe to luscious movie starlets, uppity gangsters, suspicious cops and corpses with ice picks jammed in their necks. When trouble comes calling, sometimes it's best to pretend to be out...

Farewell, My Lovely

'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 
 
Discover the newest addition to the inimitable Philip Marlowe series - Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne - out 6 September 2018 in hardback and ebook from Hogarth.

Raymond Thornton Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888, but moved to England with his family when he was twelve, where he attended Dulwich College, alma mater to some of the twentieth century's most renowned writers. Returning to America in 1912, he settled in California, worked in a number of jobs, and later married. It was during the Depression era that he seriously turned his hand to writing, and his first published story appeared in the pulp magazine Black Mask in 1933, followed six years later, when he was fifty, by his first novel, The Big Sleep. Chandler died in 1959, having established himself as the finest crime writer in America.

Eight years ago Moose Malloy and cute little redhead Velma were getting married - until someone framed Malloy for armed robbery. Now his stretch is up and he wants Velma back. PI Philip Marlow meets Malloy one hot day in Hollywood and, out of the generosity of his jaded heart, agrees to help him. Dragged from one smoky bar to another, Marlowe's search for Velma turns up plenty of dangerous 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 . . .

The Long Good-bye

A classic novel by Raymond Chandler, the master of hard-boiled crime, The Long Good-Bye is the sixth novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe 
 
Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to his only friend in the world: Philip Marlowe, Private Investigator. 
 
He's willing to help a man down on his luck, but later, Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty. Marlowe finds himself drawn into a sordid crowd of adulterers and alcoholics in LA's Idle Valley, where the rich are suffering one big suntanned hangover. 
 
Marlowe is sure Lennox didn't kill his wife, but how many more stiffs will turn up before he gets to the truth? 
 
'Anything Chandler writes about 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

Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to his only friend in the world: Philip Marlowe, Private Investigator. He's willing to help a man down on his luck, but later, Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty. Marlowe finds himself drawn into a sordid crowd of adulterers and alcoholics in LA's Idle Valley, where the rich are suffering one big suntanned hangover. Marlowe is sure Lennox didn't kill his wife, but how many more stiffs will turn up before he gets to the truth?

8 BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations

Raymond Chandler: The BBC Radio Drama Collection

A collection of BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations of novels by Raymond Chandler starring Toby Stephens and Kelly Burke.

Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 but moved to England with his mother when he was twelve after his parents' divorce. He was educated at Dulwich College, London and studied international law in France and Germany. He published a number of poems and essays in local papers and worked as a reporter, essayist and book reviewer before emigrating to the United States in 1912. After serving for the Canadian Army during the First World War he tried a variety of jobs before becoming a bookkeeper and auditor for Dabney Oil Syndicate. In 1924 he married Cissy Pascal. When Chandler lost his job during the Great Depression, he decided to devote himself to writing. He began writing short stories for Black Mask Magazine, the best known of the 'hard-boiled' school of pulp fiction magazines. In 1939 he published his first novel The Big Sleep to instant acclaim in Britain and the US, introducing the world to his iconic private eye, Philip Marlowe. Marlowe went on to star in almost all of Raymond Chandler's major works and with Farewell My Lovely (1940) and The Long Goodbye (1954) Chandler cemented his reputation as a giant of American popular culture and master of a style of detective fiction that would be widely admired and imitated. Chandler turned to screenwriting in 1943 with Double Indemnity and worked closely with director Billy Wilder. He continued to write for Hollywood for the next four years, during the heyday of the Hollywood studio system, receiving an Oscar nomination for The Blue Dahlia (1946). In 1946 Chandler received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for screenplay and in 1954 for novel writing. During the last year of his life he was made President of the Mystery Writers of America. He died from pneumonia in 1959.

The complete collection of landmark BBC Radio dramas of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe mysteries. 
 
Philip Marlowe is the archetypal noir detective: wisecracking and world-weary, hardboiled yet honourable. This volume includes all eight dramatisations of Raymond Chandler's groundbreaking crime novels featuring his iconic hero. 
 
The Big Sleep Marlowe is consulted by a wealthy family man with two big problems: his children. 
 
Farewell My Lovely Marlowe's search for an ex-con's ex-girlfriend leads him into danger. 
 
The High Window When rare gold coin is stolen from her collection, Mrs Murdoch hires Philip Marlowe to find it. 
 
The Lady in the Lake Businessman Derace Kingsley hires Marlowe to find his estranged wife Crystal. 
 
The Little Sister Commissioned to find Orfamay Quest's missing brother, Marlowe is drawn into the glamorous film world of Hollywood. 
 
The Long Goodbye Marlowe befriends a drunk named Terry Lennox, but comes to regret doing him a favour. 
 
Playback Hired to follow the mysterious Betty Mayfield, Marlowe soon finds that he is being tailed too... 
 
Poodle Springs Newly-married Marlowe puts his bride aside to look for a gambler on the run. 
 
Starring Toby Stephens as Philip Marlowe, these stylish, suspenseful dramatisations – full of witty, ironic dialogue and colourful characters – bring the beautiful, corrupt world of California in the '40s and '50s to luminous life. Duration: 11 hours approx.

Poodle Springs

Toby Stephens stars in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Raymond Chandler’s last Philip Marlowe mystery.

Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 but moved to England with his mother when he was twelve after his parents' divorce. He was educated at Dulwich College, London and studied international law in France and Germany. He published a number of poems and essays in local papers and worked as a reporter, essayist and book reviewer before emigrating to the United States in 1912. After serving for the Canadian Army during the First World War he tried a variety of jobs before becoming a bookkeeper and auditor for Dabney Oil Syndicate. In 1924 he married Cissy Pascal. When Chandler lost his job during the Great Depression, he decided to devote himself to writing. He began writing short stories for Black Mask Magazine, the best known of the 'hard-boiled' school of pulp fiction magazines. In 1939 he published his first novel The Big Sleep to instant acclaim in Britain and the US, introducing the world to his iconic private eye, Philip Marlowe. Marlowe went on to star in almost all of Raymond Chandler's major works and with Farewell My Lovely (1940) and The Long Goodbye (1954) Chandler cemented his reputation as a giant of American popular culture and master of a style of detective fiction that would be widely admired and imitated. Chandler turned to screenwriting in 1943 with Double Indemnity and worked closely with director Billy Wilder. He continued to write for Hollywood for the next four years, during the heyday of the Hollywood studio system, receiving an Oscar nomination for The Blue Dahlia (1946). In 1946 Chandler received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for screenplay and in 1954 for novel writing. During the last year of his life he was made President of the Mystery Writers of America. He died from pneumonia in 1959. 
 
Robert B. Parker was an award-winning American author who has been described as 'the dean of American crime fiction'. He was best known for his 'Spenser' series of crime novels, but also wrote many other works of fiction and non-fiction, including two other bestselling detective series - the 'Jesse Stone' and 'Sunny Randall' books - and four Westerns. In 1977, Parker received an Edgar Award for Best Novel for his 'Spenser' book Promised Land, and in 2002 he was awarded an Edgar Grand Master Award for his whole body of work. He died in 2010, aged 77.

Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the ’40s and ’50s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe must struggle to retain his integrity amidst the corruption he encounters daily. In Poodle Springs, Marlowe is fresh from his honeymoon with heiress Linda Loring, and living a life of idle leisure in the upmarket Californian town of the title. But being a kept man soon loses its charm and, bored and restless, Marlowe sets up shop as an investigator once more. Hired by a local criminal to find a gambler on the run from his debts, he is sucked into a world of bigamy, blackmail and murder... The eighth and final Philip Marlowe novel, Poodle Springs was unfinished at the time of Raymond Chandler’s death in 1959. It remained so for another 30 years, until crime writer Robert B. Parker completed the novel to mark the centenary of Chandler’s birth. Starring Toby Stephens, this entertaining dramatisation by Robin Brooks retains all the pace and intrigue of the original book.

Toby Stephens stars in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Raymond Chandler’s third Philip Marlowe mystery.

Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the ’40s and ’50s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe must struggle to retain his integrity amidst the corruption he encounters daily. In The High Window, Marlowe starts out on the trail of a single stolen coin and ends up knee-deep in bodies. His client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband’s collection. That’s the simple part. But Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead. If Marlowe doesn’t wrap this one up fast, he’s going to end up in jail - or worse, in a box in the ground. Starring Toby Stephens, this thrilling dramatisation by Robin Brooks retains all the wry humour of Chandler’s serpentine suspense novel.

The Long Goodbye

Toby Stephens stars in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Raymond Chandler’s sixth Philip Marlowe mystery.

Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the ’40s and ’50s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe must struggle to retain his integrity amidst the corruption he encounters daily. In The Long Goodbye, Marlowe forms an uneasy friendship with a drunk named Terry Lennox. So when Lennox shows up late one night, looking guilty and asking for a ride to Tijuana airport, Marlowe agrees - though he suspects he’s going to regret it. He’s right. First Lennox’s rich, adulterous wife is found murdered, then Marlowe is arrested, then Lennox himself turns up dead in Mexico: an apparent suicide with a signed confession by his side. And if that wasn’t enough, Marlowe also finds himself babysitting an author to make sure he delivers his next book. Trying to juggle two increasingly tricky cases, Marlowe knows that if he takes his eye off the ball, he could end up dead... Starring Toby Stephens, this powerful dramatisation by Stephen Wyatt cannot fail to draw you into Raymond Chandler’s darkly attractive world of deceit, decadence and death.

Toby Stephens stars in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Raymond Chandler’s final completed Philip Marlowe mystery.

Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the ’40s and ’50s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe must struggle to retain his integrity amidst the corruption he encounters daily. In Playback, Marlowe is awakened early in the morning by a phone call from a lawyer. Clyde Umney instructs him to meet the eight o’clock train from Chicago, and shadow one of the passengers. The lady in question, Eleanor King, is beautiful, classy and clearly unhappy. Obediently, Marlowe follows her – all the way to Esmerelda, where she’s going under the name Betty Mayfield and being leaned on by a cheap blackmailer. Stuck doing a sneaky job for people he doesn’t like, Marlowe feels even grubbier than usual: and he’s soon in more trouble than usual too as he comes up against gangsters, hard men and a hitman... Starring Toby Stephens, this exciting dramatisation retains all the verve of Chandler’s last novel.

Toby Stephens stars in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Raymond Chandler’s first Philip Marlowe mystery.

Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the ’40s and ’50s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe must struggle to retain his integrity amidst the corruption he encounters daily. The Big Sleep finds the world-weary, wisecracking investigator consulted by a wealthy family man with two big problems: his children. Carmen Sternwood has got herself mixed up with a blackmailer, while Vivian has managed to mislay her husband, ex-bootlegger Rusty Regan. Old, ailing General Sternwood hires Marlowe to take care of things - but it’s not too long before the bodies start piling up, and Marlowe finds himself knee-deep in trouble... Starring Toby Stephens, this landmark dramatisation retains all the suspense and excitement of Chandler’s complex and compelling novel.

'I pushed her back into the house without saying anything, shut the door. We stood looking at each other inside. She dropped her hand slowly and tried to smile. Then all expression went out of her white face and it looked as intelligent as the bottom of a shoe box...I lit my cigarette, puffed it slowly for a moment and then asked: "What are you doing here?" 
 
Before creating Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler perfected the hardboiled private detective story in the pages of Blask Mask magazine - tough, spare tales of gumshoes and murder, laced with a weary lyricism and deadpan, laconic wit. 'Killer in the Rain' is vintage Chandler, the groundwork for his classic first novel The Big Sleep.

Collected Stories

The only complete collection of shorter fiction by the undisputed master of detective literature, assembled here for the first time in one volume, includes stories unavailable for decades. When Raymond Chandler turned to writing at the age of forty-five, he began by publishing in pulp magazines such as Black Mask before later writing his famous novels. In these stories Chandler honed his art and developed his uniquely vivid underworld, peopled with good cops and bad cops, informers and extortionists, lethally predatory blondes and redheads, and crime, sex, gambling and alcohol in abundance. In addition to his classic detective fiction – in which his signature atmosphere of depravity and violence swirls around cool, intuitive loners such as Philip Marlowe – Chandler turned his hand to fantasy and even a Gothic romance. This rich treasury of twenty-five stories shows him developing the laconic, understated style that would serve him so well in his later masterpieces, immersing readers in the richly realized fictional universe that has become a part of our literary landscape.

Volume 1

The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, The High Window

Raymond Chandler’s first three novels, published here in one volume, established his reputation as an unsurpassed master of hard-boiled detective fiction. 
 
The Big Sleep, Chandler’s first novel, introduces Philip Marlowe, a private detective inhabiting the seamy side of Los Angeles in the 1930s, as he takes on a case involving a paralysed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail and murder. 
 
In Farewell, My Lovely, Marlowe deals with the gambling circuit, a murder he stumbles upon, and three very beautiful but potentially deadly women. 
 
In The High Window, Marlowe searches the California underworld for a priceless gold coin and finds himself deep in the tangled affairs of a dead coin collector. 
 
In all three novels, Chandler’s hard-edged prose, colourful characters, vivid vernacular, and, above all, his enigmatic loner of a hero, establish his enduring claim to the heights of his chosen genre.

Volume 2

The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, The Long Goodbye, Playback

Creator of the famous Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler elevated the American hard-boiled detective genre to an art form. His last four novels, published here in one volume, offer ample opportunity to savour the unique and compelling fictional world that made his works modern classics. 
 
The Lady in the Lake moves Marlowe out of his usual habitat of city streets and into the mountains outside Los Angeles in his strange search for a missing woman. 
 
The Little Sister takes Marlowe to Hollywood, where he tries to find a sweet young thing’s missing brother, uncovering on the way a little blackmail, a lot of drugs, and more than enough murder. 
 
In The Long Goodbye, a case involving a war-scarred drunk and his nymphomaniac wife has Marlowe constantly on the move: a psychotic gangster’s on his trail, he’s in trouble with the cops, and more and more corpses keep turning up. 
 
Playback features a well-endowed redhead who leads Marlowe to the California coast to solve a tale of big money and, of course, murder. 
 
Throughout these masterpieces, Marlowe’s wry humour and existential sense of his job prove yet again why he has become one of the most recognized and imitated characters in fiction.

Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since.

One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards that others still try to attain.

Raymond Chandler created the fast talking, trouble seeking Californian private eye Philip Marlowe for his first great novel The Big Sleep in 1939. Marlowe's entanglement with the Sternwood family - and an attendant cast of colourful underworld figures - is the background to a story reflecting all the tarnished glitter of the great American Dream. The hard-boiled detective's iconic image burns just as brightly in Farewell My Lovely, on the trail of a missing nightclub crooner.

Raymond Chandler

Books by Raymond Chandler

Series by Raymond Chandler

Phillip Marlowe

Articles featuring Raymond Chandler

17 top crime short story collections

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