A couple of missing wives—one a rich man's and one a poor man's—become the objects of Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo and the other may be dead.

Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care.

"Raymond Chandler is a master."
   THE NEW YORK TIMES

"[Chandler] wrote as if pain hurt and life mattered."
   THE NEW YORKER

"Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious."
   ROBERT B. PARKER, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

"Philip Marlowe remains the quintessential urban private eye."
   LOS ANGELES TIMES

"Nobody can write like Chandler on his home turf, not even Faulkner.... An original.... A great artist."
   THE BOSTON BOOK REVIEW

"Raymond Chandler was one of the finest prose writers of the twentieth century.... Age does not wither Chandler's prose.... He wrote like an angel."
   LITERARY REVIEW

"[T]he prose rises to heights of unselfconscious eloquence, and we realize with a jolt of excitement that we are in the presence of not a mere action tale teller, but a stylist, a writer with a vision."
   JOYCE CAROL OATES, THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS