Poodle Springs / Raymond Chandler, Robert B. Parker

Marlowe’s first case comes when he is forced by hoodlums to visit a local criminal named Lipschultz, who operates an illegal gambling house in Riverside, just outside the jurisdiction of Poodle Springs. He has taken an IOU for $100,000 from one of his customers, a Poodle Springs photographer called Les Valentine. Lipshultz’s boss, an unrevealed local tycoon, has found out that the sum is missing from the books and has issued a 30-day ultimatum to retrieve the money. Asked to find Valentine, Marlowe accepts on condition that he does not have to shake Valentine down. When Marlowe questions Valentine’s wife, Muffy Blackstone, a spoiled socialite and acquaintance of his own wife, she tells him that Valentine is out on a photo shoot. Instead he eventually discovers that Valentine is an alias for a sleazy individual living in Los Angeles with a second wife. When Marlowe calls on Lipshultz again, he finds him killed in his casino office and assists Valentine to escape after he is suspected, not just for this crime but for an earlier slaying in his own office.