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Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep is the definitive hardboiled detective story and Philip Marlowe the perfect expression of the cynical, world-weary gumshoe. Hired by the crippled General Sternwood to shake off a blackmailer, Marlowe also has to deal with the general's two rebellious daughters, the gamblers and pornographers they run with and, soon enough, some inconvenient murders. Chandler's LA and the gutter-life that populate it made crime fiction what it is today and remain unmatched.