The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

"A masterpiece of noir, Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep helped to define a genre. Today it remains one of the most celebrated and stylish novels of the twentieth century. It introduced the world to the fast talking, trouble seeking Californian private eye Philip Marlowe and an attendant cast of colorful underworld figures; it is the background to a story reflecting all the tarnished glitter of the great American Dream." -from Amazon.com