Plot summary

With his eyes bandaged, Los Angeles based private investigator Philip Marlowe is under police interrogation as a murder suspect. Marlowe tells them the story as he knows. In quick succession, he is hired by two different clients for two potentially lucrative cases. The first client is hulking Moose Malloy, an ex-con who hires him to find his ex-fiancée Velma Valento, of who he lost track while he was in prison for eight years. The second client is Lindsay Marriott, who hires him for a one night job, to accompany him to Laurel Canyon to act as the go-between to repurchase some jewels that were stolen from a friend. Marlowe later learns that friend is Helen Grayle, the young second wife of wealthy sixty-five year old Leuwen Grayle, and the jewels are a jade necklace worth approximately $100,000 that Mr. Grayle, a jade collector, gave to her as a gift. In meeting the Grayles, Marlowe also meets Mr. Grayle's daughter, Ann Grayle, who detests her stepmother. Ann goes as far as secretly advising Marlowe not to associate with Helen, and will pay him to break those ties with Helen. Marlowe also discovers that Marriott is associated with a self-described "quack", a psychic consultant name Jules Amthor, who is known to the police. The two cases start to intersect in ways Marlowe never expect. When one of the players is found murdered, Marlowe has to piece together who is the one manipulating the situation to his/her benefit to discover who committed that murder. The last piece in him being able to do so is how the jade necklace fits into the picture.—Huggo