"Trouble is My Business" by Raymond Chandler

Available in: Raymond Chandler: Collected Stories. Knopf, 2002.

Slated to be adapted by Frank Miller for a Philip Marlowe movie starring Clive Owen, the novella "Trouble is My Business" has Marlowe working for a fledgling detective agency, digging up dirt on a woman who's got her claws into a rich man's son. He begins by calling another P.I. who's worked the case, but when Marlowe goes to meet him, he finds the P.I. dead.

"Trouble is My Business" is full of men entering with guns and eerily discovered deaths. Marlowe gets to the truth by sheer persistence. For me, this story was a reminder of how refined Chandler's prose was, how truly inimitable Marlowe was. The Everyman's Library edition is certainly worth the price.