![]() The Big Sleep seems to set the pattern for the books that follow - Marlowe takes a job from a rich guy who only wants him to do one specific thing but not poke his nose anywhere else, which Marlowe of course does. Not the first Raymond Chandler novel I've read, but the first in the Philip Marlowe series. 'What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that.You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. 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. 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. At the end of the novel, Marlowe contemplates death-the "big sleep"-and concludes that death is the only escape from the nastiness and depravity of life.Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. When Marlowe confronts Vivian, she confesses that Rusty is buried under an oil sump and that she had paid Mars to help her bury the body. Marlowe figures out that Carmen is the one who murdered Rusty, because he (like Marlowe) had also rejected her sexually. But having already suspected Carmen of foul play, Marlowe had loaded the gun with blanks. bang, bang, bang, bang, bang! Carmen fires five shots straight at Marlowe. The next day, Marlowe pays a visit to the General and runs into Carmen, who wants Marlowe to teach her how to shoot a gun. Marlowe somehow manages to track down Mona, and a few fist fights and gunshots later, Marlowe has killed Canino and escaped with Mona. He has a scoop on Mona's whereabouts, but before Marlowe is able to get the necessary information, Harry is poisoned by Canino, Mars' right-hand man. No one wants to help Marlowe, least of all Vivian, who owes gambling debts to Eddie Mars (who also happens to be Mona's husband, as in the gal who supposedly ran off with Regan. ![]() But Marlowe decides against his better judgment to find the truth behind Regan's disappearance. He has exposed the blackmailers and the case should be closed. The plot is really convoluted and hard to follow, so you just have to go with the flow. But before Marlowe is able to turn Brody in to the police, Carol Lundgren shows up out of nowhere and shoots Brody in the mistaken belief that Brody had killed Geiger. Apparently, Vivian is being blackmailed with nude photos of Carmen, and Marlowe traces the photos back to a Mr. The next morning, another stiff surfaces, and this time it's Owen Taylor-the chauffeur. Later the same day, Geiger is murdered and Marlowe finds Carmen naked at the scene of the crime… yikes. Marlowe learns that Geiger's using his rare bookstore as a front for an illegal pornography racket. So in a nutshell, there seem to be two main plotlines in the novel: (1) the blackmail scheme, and (2) the disappearance of Regan. Rumor has it that Regan ran off with Mona Grant. During the meeting, Marlowe also senses that there is something fishy going on with the disappearance of Rusty Regan, the General's son-in-law and husband to Vivian. And it's Marlowe's job to track down Geiger's whereabouts. ![]() The dying General is being blackmailed by Arthur Geiger, who claims that Sternwood's daughter Carmen owes him gambling debts. Private detective Philip Marlowe pays a visit to millionaire General Sternwood. It's a dreary October morning in Los Angeles.
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