That night, Terry would have told me the story of his life if I'd asked him. If I had asked, and if he had told me, it might have saved a couple of lives. It might have. Terry Lennox is a drunk. Philip Marlowe, private detective, knows it's always a mistake to try to help drunks. But then, Marlowe is always on the side of losers. Perhaps that's why he decides to help Lennox get away when he's in trouble. But then the body of Sylvia Lennox is found. Marlowe can't believe that Lennox killed his wife, but the police certainly do. Suddenly, wherever Marlowe goes, whatever he does, Terry Lennox's strange life seems to follow him around.

If anyone could rob a bank on his own, it's Moose Malloy. He's as hard as stone and as big as a bus. Now he's out of prison, and he wants two things - to know who gave his name to the police eight years ago, and to find his girlfriend.Moose means trouble, and it's the sort of trouble a private detective should stay away from. So of course Philip Marlowe runs straight into it - trouble with the police, trouble with women, trouble with almost every criminal in California. And trouble with murder. Even when he tries to walk away from it, this sort of trouble just follows him around.

Phillip Marlowe, a private detective, wants to make some money. He wrote a detective novel and sent it to a publishing house, which prints the horror novels. The editor invited Mr. Marlowe for a meeting. During the meeting the detective understood one thing. The editor was interested in his detective skills. She proposed a deal - if Phillip solved a difficult case, the novel would be published. The case was connected with the disappearance of publisher's wife. The detective accepted this proposition. There was one thing confusing him. The wife had left with her lover. Despite of this Marlowe started an investigation as he urgently needed money. Suddenly he was caught up in a complicated story.