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"Blackmailers Don't Shoot" is a short story by Raymond Chandler. [1] It was first published in December 1933 in the magazine Black Mask . [2]
Rhonda Farr, an actress, is rejecting an ostensible blackmail attempt by Mallory, a private detective, involving love letters she wrote to a man named Landrey, who is now a gangster. After leaving, Mallory is held up by two henchmen, who learn Farr has been kidnapped. One henchman, Macdonald, is not pleased at the news. They bring Mallory to their hideaway, and Macdonald angrily confronts the other gang members about the unplanned kidnapping. He teams up with Mallory and overpowers the others. Mallory explains he was actually hired by Landrey to find the letters. He, Macdonald, and Landrey follow several leads and rescue Farr, but Macdonald, Landrey, and several kidnappers are killed in the process. Mallory gives the letters, which he found on Landrey, to Farr, who tries to pretend she was in on the whole thing. Mallory goes to Landrey's gangster partner, Mardonne, and asks for the fee owed to him. He explains that Landrey used him to fake a blackmail attempt on Farr, as part of a kidnapping scheme to scare her into taking him back. Mardonne is unsure what to make of it, and Mallory suspects him of hoping to continue the blackmail, which is over now that Farr has the letters and can enlist help from the studio. Mardonne ends up being killed inadvertently, and Mallory is wounded. At the police station, the captain tells Mallory the official story for each killing: separate, run-of-the-mill homicides. Mallory smiles and hints at Farr's situation, then leaves for home.
The story was made into an episode of the HBO series Philip Marlowe, Private Eye .
The Big Sleep (1939) is a hardboiled crime novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective Philip Marlowe. It has been adapted for film twice, in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is set in Los Angeles.
Philip Marlowe is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler who was characteristic of the hardboiled crime fiction genre. The genre originated in the 1920s, notably in Black Mask magazine, in which Dashiell Hammett's The Continental Op and Sam Spade first appeared. Marlowe first appeared under that name in The Big Sleep, published in 1939. Chandler's early short stories, published in pulp magazines such as Black Mask and Dime Detective, featured similar characters with names like "Carmady" and "John Dalmas", starting in 1933.
The Blue Dahlia is a 1946 American crime film and film noir with an original screenplay by Raymond Chandler directed by George Marshall and starring Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and William Bendix. It was Chandler's first original screenplay.
Farewell, My Lovely is a novel by Raymond Chandler, published in 1940, the second novel he wrote featuring the Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe. It was adapted for the screen three times and was also adapted for the stage and radio.
The Long Good-bye is a novel by Raymond Chandler, published in 1953, his sixth novel featuring the private investigator Philip Marlowe. Some critics consider it inferior to The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely, but others rank it as the best of his work. Chandler, in a letter to a friend, called the novel "my best book".
Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll was an Irish-American mob hitman in the 1920s and early 1930s in New York City. Coll gained notoriety for the allegedly accidental killing of a young child during a mob kidnap attempt.
Playback is a novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler featuring the private detective Philip Marlowe. It was first published in Britain in July 1958; the US edition followed in October that year. Chandler died the following year; Playback is his last completed novel.
The Moving Target is a detective novel by writer Ross Macdonald, first published by Alfred A. Knopf in April 1949.
Blue City is a thriller written in 1947 by Ross Macdonald. The novel was originally released under his real name, Kenneth Millar, by Alfred A. Knopf, while a condensed version was serialized in the August and September 1950 issues of Esquire.
The Little Sister is a 1949 novel by Raymond Chandler, his fifth featuring the private investigator Philip Marlowe. The story is set in Los Angeles in the late 1940s and follows Marlowe's investigation of a missing persons case and blackmail scheme centered around a Hollywood starlet. With several scenes involving the film industry, the novel was partly inspired by Chandler's experience working as a screenwriter in Hollywood and his low opinion of the industry and most of the people in it. The book was first published in the UK in June 1949 and was released in the United States three months later.
The High Window is a 1942 novel written by Raymond Chandler. It is his third novel featuring the Los Angeles private detective Philip Marlowe.
Harper is a 1966 American mystery film based on Ross Macdonald's 1949 novel The Moving Target and adapted for the screen by novelist William Goldman, who admired MacDonald's writings. The film stars Paul Newman as Lew Harper, and was directed by Jack Smight, with a cast that includes Robert Wagner, Julie Harris, Janet Leigh, Shelley Winters, Lauren Bacall, and Arthur Hill.
Marlowe is a 1969 American neo-noir film starring James Garner as Raymond Chandler's private detective Philip Marlowe. Directed by Paul Bogart, the film was written by Stirling Silliphant based on Chandler's 1949 novel The Little Sister.
Letty Lynton is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film starring Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery and Nils Asther. The film was directed by Clarence Brown and based on the 1931 novel of the same name by Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes; the novel is based on an historical murder allegedly committed by Madeleine Smith. Crawford plays the title character, who gets away with murder in a tale of love and blackmail.
The Mucker is a novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was originally formed by two stories: "The Mucker", begun in August 1913 and published by All-Story Weekly in October and November 1914; and "The Return of the Mucker", begun in January 1916 and published by All-Story Weekly in June and July 1916. The book version was first published by A. C. McClurg on 31 October 1921. From January 1922 to August 1939, Methuen (UK) published a version of The Return of the Mucker under the title The Man Without a Soul.
The Private Patient (2008) is a crime novel by English author P. D. James, the fourteenth and last in her popular Adam Dalgliesh series.
"Smart-Aleck Kill" is a short story by writer Raymond Chandler. It was first published in July 1934 in the magazine Black Mask.
"Nevada Gas" is a short story by writer Raymond Chandler. It was first published in June 1935 in the magazine Black Mask. The "Nevada gas" of the title refers to cyanide gas, used for executions in the state of Nevada at the time.
Wayne of Gotham is a novel by Tracy Hickman and is about the fictional superhero Batman. The book was published on December 4, 2012. A GraphicAudio audiobook was recorded in 2013.
Meet Me at the Morgue is the ninth novel completed by Ross Macdonald. Credited at the time to John Ross Macdonald, it was published in 1953 by A. A. Knopf and released as a paperback by Pocket Books the following year. In that year too the book was published by Cassell & Co in the UK under the title Experience with Evil. There had been disagreement over the novel's original title. Knopf turned down Macdonald's suggestion of Message from Hell and Macdonald turned down the suggestion of The Convenient Corpse from Pocket Books.
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