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The Big Sleep (1939) is a crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first in his acclaimed series about...

The Big Sleep (1939) is a crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first in his acclaimed series about hardboiled detective Philip Marlowe. The work has been adapted twice into film, once in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is noted for its complexity and is heavily influenced by classic Greek tragedy, with many characters double-crossing each other and many secrets being exposed throughout the narrative. The title is a euphemism for death; it refers to a rumination in the book about "sleeping the big sleep", and is not descriptive of the plot. In 2005, Time magazine included the novel in its 100 Best Novels published after 1923. Hard-boiled P.I Philip Marlowe has been hired by the ailing, elderly millionaire General Sternwood to track down a blackmailer, who claims he is owed gambling debts from Sternwood's reckless daughter, Carmen. But what seems like a simple case soon becomes much more difficult... Private investigator Philip Marlowe is called to the sprawling mansion of the elderly and paraplegic General Sternwood. He asks Marlowe to deal with a blackmailer named Arthur Gwynn Geiger, apparently a purveyor of rare books. Geiger is involved with the General's nymphomaniac daughter