Raymond Chandler Books in Order

Tony Reseck, a weary hotel house detective, notices a red‑haired woman sitting alone night after night, waiting for a dangerous man from her past. When gangsters arrive to collect old debts, Tony has to decide how much he’ll risk for a stranger he barely knows.

Part biography, part scrapbook, this book weaves together Chandler’s own words—taken from his fiction, letters, and interviews—with commentary and photos. It sketches his restless life, his love‑hate relationship with Los Angeles and Hollywood, and how Philip Marlowe slowly took shape.

Detective Sam Delaguerra is sent to a seaside California town to look for a missing girl whose worried mother fears the worst. The trail leads through political bosses, an offshore gambling ship, and a suave killer whose love of dogs masks far darker loyalties.

Companion to Stories and Early Novels, this volume collects The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, The Long Goodbye, and Playback, plus the Double Indemnity script, essays, and letters. It showcases Chandler’s darker late style and his reflections on writing and Hollywood.

Newly married to heiress Linda Loring, Philip Marlowe tries to keep his independence by opening a small agency in the desert enclave of Poodle Springs. His first case—finding a photographer tied to a huge gambling debt—exposes local corruption and strains his uneasy new marriage.

Drawn from decades of correspondence, Selected Letters lets Chandler speak in his own sardonic, thoughtful voice. He writes about the grind of pulp work, Hollywood battles, his marriage to Cissy, and the doubts and stubborn pride behind Philip Marlowe’s creation.

Private eye Philip Marlowe is hired to track down the long‑missing Leander pearls, stolen years earlier and never recovered. His search through cheap rooming houses, grifters, and double‑crosses turns into a tight, twisty case about greed, courage, and who will take the fall.

Chandler’s only wholly original screenplay follows war veteran Johnny Morrison, who returns to Los Angeles to find his wife unfaithful and later murdered. Framed as the prime suspect, he must untangle nightclub intrigue, shell‑shocked comrades, and a ruthless killer on the Sunset Strip.

This unfinished gothic romance shifts Chandler’s eye from Los Angeles to an English country house full of secrets. An American narrator falls for a seemingly innocent young woman, only to find that class, desire, and buried cruelty make the summer anything but idyllic.

An omnibus volume, The Midnight Raymond Chandler pairs the novels The Little Sister and The Long Goodbye with key stories such as Red Wind and Trouble is My Business. It’s an efficient way to sample both Marlowe’s long cases and Chandler’s shorter, sharper work.

This hefty collection gathers many of Chandler’s strongest short stories, from early pulp pieces to late work. Across crooked cops, desperate drifters, and Marlowe himself, the tales share a tense, unsettled atmosphere—the “smell of fear” that hangs over everyday places.

An anonymous client hires Philip Marlowe to shadow an attractive woman traveling under an alias to a seaside town called Esmeralda. As he learns why she’s being hunted, Marlowe must decide whether to betray his employer or help her outrun a dangerous past.

A rare comic turn for Chandler, this story follows gentleman Walter Gage and roughneck Henry Eichelberger as they hunt for Mrs. Penruddock’s stolen pearls. High-flown speech, dive bars, and bruising brawls turn the search into a boozy, oddly warmhearted caper.

Philip Marlowe befriends damaged war veteran Terry Lennox, then drives him to Mexico on the night Lennox’s wife is found brutally murdered. Refusing to accept the easy answers, Marlowe digs into Hollywood wealth, publishing scandals, and the price of loyalty and self-respect.

Hollywood studio detective Mallory is hired to stop a blackmail scheme aimed at temperamental director Derek Walden. When Walden turns up dead, Mallory’s hunt for the truth runs through crooked city officials, mob enforcers, and the dirty money behind the movie business.

Collecting four vintage stories, this book drops various Chandler detectives into fixed-up cars, crooked city halls, and backroom gun deals. The title piece starts with a seemingly simple encounter on a tough downtown block and explodes into murder and political cover‑ups.

Joe Pettigrew is a drab husband humiliated by his cheating wife and their smug lodger—until a peculiar Professor Bingo sells him snuff that makes him invisible. Joe’s “perfect” locked-room murder quickly spins out of control in one of Chandler’s few macabre fantasies.

Four hard-edged stories—including the title tale of a spoiled rich boy and the woman out to ruin him—show Philip Marlowe working cases that start as simple protection jobs and end in murder. It’s a compact tour of his meaner, messier short-form adventures.

This collection combines Chandler’s influential essay on what crime fiction should be with a group of early hardboiled stories. It’s a sharp introduction to his ideas about realism, style, and why detectives like Philip Marlowe belong on the mean streets.

A prim young woman from Kansas hires Philip Marlowe to find her missing brother in Los Angeles. The job plunges him into Hollywood’s low-end studios, ruthless fixer types, and a tangle of blackmail and sibling betrayal that strips away any glamour the movies promise.

After witnessing a mob killing, Philip Marlowe agrees to testify against racketeer Manny Tinnen and then go undercover to bring down Tinnen’s boss. The job drags him through nightclubs, boxing gyms, and crooked politics where every ally may be another paid informer.

Lieutenant Sam Delaguerra, an honest Los Angeles cop with deep Californio roots, investigates the murder of his politician friend Donegan Marr. As he uncovers a web of bosses, fixers, and betrayals, Sam must choose between exposing the truth and letting an official lie stand.

On a night when the hot Santa Ana wind has Los Angeles on edge, Philip Marlowe stops for a drink in a small bar and witnesses a sudden killing. The shooting drags him into a case of jealousy, blackmail, and a woman who can’t quite let go.

Five classic stories—featuring characters from hotel detectives to small‑time grifters—make up this collection. Pieces like Pearls Are a Nuisance, I’ll Be Waiting, Red Wind, and Trouble is My Business showcase Chandler’s mix of sardonic humor, romantic disappointment, and sudden violence.

This volume presents Raymond Chandler’s screenplay for the classic film noir about an insurance agent drawn into murdering a client for the double‑payout on a policy. His cool plot with a calculating femme fatale helped set the template for postwar crime movies.

Businessman Derace Kingsley hires Philip Marlowe to track down his missing wife, who may have run off with a lover. Marlowe’s search leads from a quiet mountain resort back to Los Angeles, where multiple bodies and police corruption surface beneath the placid lake water.

Called in by tyrannical widow Elizabeth Murdock, Philip Marlowe is asked to recover a priceless Brasher Doubloon supposedly stolen by her flighty daughter‑in‑law. The hunt for the missing coin uncovers murder, blackmail, and rot at the heart of a wealthy Pasadena family.

In this long short story, detective John Evans travels to a remote mountain resort after receiving a cryptic letter from a new client. A dead man, missing money, and rumors of foreign agents turn a quiet vacation town into a tight, fast-moving manhunt.

While chasing a routine missing-persons case, Philip Marlowe watches hulking ex-con Moose Malloy storm into a nightclub looking for his vanished sweetheart. The search for Velma pulls Marlowe through gambling dens, crooked cops, and spiritualist rackets in a violent Los Angeles.

Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by aging General Sternwood to stop a shady bookseller from blackmailing the general’s reckless daughter. What begins as a simple shakedown spirals into murder, pornography, and a tangle of secrets in seedy 1930s Los Angeles.

Detective John Dalmas is hired to look into the supposed suicide of a doctor’s wife in the corrupt coastal community Chandler calls Bay City. What seems like a closed case opens up into police brutality, blackmail, and the grim politics of a seaside boomtown.

This Library of America volume gathers Chandler’s key 1930s pulp stories alongside his first three Philip Marlowe novels—The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, and The High Window. It traces his evolution from magazine writer to creator of the modern Los Angeles private eye.