Playback: Raymond Chandler

6.30 a.m. isn't Marlowe's best hour for being woken up, especially by a crummy lawyer called Umney. Umney's assistant was more interesting: sharp tongue, blue-grey eyes and more curves than a scenic railway. The brief is vague: a strange lady - Betty Mayfield - is being blackmailed by a guy with a mind as straight as a stale banana. What started as a standard tail job ended up with a disappearing corpse on a hotel balcony - a fat little jerk of a P.I., called Goble and a suicidal junkie with a few secrets...Chandler's last complete novel.