OPEN A BOOK,OPEN THE WORLD
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘽𝙞𝙜 𝙎𝙡𝙚𝙚𝙥 & 𝙁𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙡, 𝙈𝙮 𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙗𝙮 𝙍𝙖𝙮𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙙 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙡𝙚𝙧
錢德勒開創了一種談論美國的全新方式，自此，美國在我們眼中再也不同以往。—保羅奧斯特
本書收錄奠定錢德勒冷硬派偵探小說地位的《Big Sleep》、《Farewell, My Lovely》兩則經典故事。《Big Sleep》為錢德勒以私家偵探馬羅為主角的首部作品，續集《Farewell, My Lovely》更是首部搬上大螢幕的馬羅系列故事。
汙穢橫流、罪惡湧動的洛杉磯地下世界，私家偵探菲力普馬羅遊走其中。
《Big Sleep》大眠
他接到來自Sternwood將軍的委託，為的是一封署名A.G. Geiger的鉅額勒索信件。Sterwood將軍年邁，半身殘疾，但富可敵國；兩位女兒美麗驕縱，性格頑劣；而女兒的私酒商丈夫，此時卻無故失蹤…
《Farewell, My Lovely》再見，吾愛
馬羅手上有一樁替妻子尋找理髮師丈夫的委託，怎料卻被這個案件牽引到另一樁離奇事件：一名剛出獄的男子，在尋找思念多年的歌舞女郎的過程中，意外殺害了俱樂部的經理。而後馬羅在另一樁委託中協助轉交一筆贖金，取回一條昂貴翡翠項鍊，卻在面交地點遇襲，醒來後，卻發現委託人已死。
而項鍊的主人，竟和那位歌舞女郎所關聯…
洛杉磯的灰色地帶，黑幫橫行，而面對這群習於先扣板機再說話的惡漢，馬羅在拼湊真相的過程中並不總是機巧優雅。不同於傳統英式推理小說中的偵探，運籌帷幄地周旋於犯罪現場及相關人士間，最後在關鍵時刻一語道破謎團，錢德勒筆下的菲立普馬羅，以硬漢形象深植人心，他會吃癟，在調查過程中遭到毆打、或被囚禁關押，也曾破壞現場證據。帶著打滾多年的冷眼與悲憫，他在查案過程中一路跌跌撞撞，卻也因此為這個角色增添了一絲血肉，更加貼近我等凡人。
For wise-cracking Private Eye Philip Marlowe, murder is all in a day's work...
There are no streets meaner than those of L.A.'s underworld - but luckily one detective has more than his fair share of street smarts. Here, in the first two novels featuring the immortal creation Philip Marlowe, we see the cynical sleuth taking on a nasty case of blackmail involving a Californian millionaire and his two devil-may-care daughters; then dealing with a missing nightclub crooner (plus several gangsters with a habit of shooting first and talking later).
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was a British-American novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at age forty-four, Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but Playback have been made into motion pictures, some several times. In the year before he died, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. He died on March 26, 1959, in La Jolla, California.
Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is considered by many to be a founder, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers, of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction. His protagonist, Philip Marlowe, along with Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective," both having been played on screen by Humphrey Bogart, whom many considered to be the quintessential Marlowe.
Some of Chandler's novels are considered important literary works, and three are often considered masterpieces: Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Little Sister (1949), and The Long Goodbye (1953). The Long Goodbye was praised in an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery".
