Raymond Chandler, “The Long Goodbye”

A drunk in a Rolls-Royce, a friend with a gun, and a goodbye that never ends

Philip Marlowe should have left Terry Lennox in the gutter. Instead he picks him up: a polite young drunk with bone-white hair, a scarred face and a rich wife who has just driven off without him. It is the beginning of the strangest friendship of Marlowe’s life. It is a friendship of quiet evenings at Victor’s, of gimlets made the right way, of things neither man will ever say aloud.

Then one morning before dawn Terry turns up at Marlowe’s door with a gun in his hand and a favour to ask. Marlowe asks no questions. Within days he is in a cell, the police want a confession he will not give, and some of the most powerful people in Los Angeles want the whole affair to disappear.

Soon he is drawn into the gilded world of Idle Valley. There a famous novelist is drinking himself to death, his beautiful wife seems to belong to another age, and every favour comes with a price. In that world money buys everything except the truth, and Marlowe keeps refusing the money.

Published in 1953 and winner of the Edgar Award for best novel, The Long Goodbye is Raymond Chandler’s longest and most ambitious book, and for many readers his masterpiece. It is a mystery with all the twists and lies the genre demands. It is also a novel about loyalty, loneliness and the cost of keeping your word in a city that has forgotten what words are worth.

Read it for the sharpest dialogue in American crime fiction. Read it for a Marlowe older and sadder than ever. Above all, read it to find out what a goodbye can cost.

Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) was the master of the hardboiled novel and the creator of Philip Marlowe.

Crimina Series

A paperback and e-book series published by Intra.

Global readability, Italian charm.

• Date of publication: October. 18 2026
• Language: English
• Paperback: 383 pages
• ISBN-13: 979-1259919601
• Weight: –
• Dimensions: 12.7 x 2.31 x 20.32 cm
• Price: $ 22.99 (paperback)

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