Trouble is My Business

''I need a man good-looking enough to pick up a dame who has a sense of class, but he''s got to be tough enough to swap punches with a power shovel.''

In the first of the four cases in Trouble is My Business, Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is offered a job that leaves a bad taste in the mouth: smearing a girl who''s ''got her hooks into a rich man''s pup''. Before too long Marlowe''s up to his neck in corpses and cops and he''s taken pity on the girl. There''s nothing like making trouble out of your business . . .

The four novellas collected here are quintessential Raymond Chandler: slick, crystal-clear writing that pins the reader to the seat and won''t let go until the last page is turned.

''Age does not wither Chandler''s prose'' Literary Review

''Chandler''s prose flies off the pages like a burst from a Tommy gun. Chandler was perhaps the finest exponent of the fledgling genre now known as pulp fiction'' Scottish Field