The Long Goodbye

Marlowe is hired to search for Roger Wade, a novelist who has disappeared on a drinking binge. Wade's wife, Eileen, hopes that Marlowe will become Wade's bodyguard. Marlowe also encounters Terry Lennox, husband of a nymphomaniac heiress who is ultimately murdered, and Marlowe must help Terry, now a suspect, escape to Mexico. In this novel, Marlowe's disillusionment with the human character is far more bitter than in previous books. But Marlowe does, finally, allow himself to fall in love--with Linda Loring, Terry Lennox's sister-in-law. This novel won Chandler an Edgar award.