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'I know it sounds corny, but I could drill you and get away with it.'

'Okay,' I said thickly. 'For 50 bucks a day, I don't get shot. That costs 75.'

Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is mixing business with pleasure - he's getting paid to follow a lovely mysterious redhead called Eleanor King. And wherever Miss King goes, trouble is sure to follow. But she's easy on the eye and Marlowe's happy to do as he's told. But one dead body later and what started out as a lazy afternoon's snooping soon becomes a deadly cocktail of blackmail, lies, mistaken identity - and murder....

Playback is Raymond Chandler's last full-length novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe.