'Denise Mina is a one-of-a-kind storyteller' James Patterson

"This is Marlowe."

"Mr. Philip Marlowe?" She asked.

I glanced at the clock. It was exactly eleven am, as if she had been waiting by the

phone for an appointed hour, following someone else's orders to the letter.

"What, d'you think we're a troupe of brothers? There is only me."

It's mid-September, a heatwave has descended on the parched hills of LA and Private Detective Philip Marlowe is called to the Montgomery estate, an almost mythic place sitting high on top of Beverly Hills. Wealthy twenty-two-year-old Chrissie Montgomery, set to inherit an enormous fortune, is missing.

She's a walking target, ripe for someone to get their claws into. Her dying father, along with his sultry bottle blonde girlfriend, wants her found before that happens. They've hired Anna Riorden, Marlowe's nemesis, too. The search takes them to the roughest neighbourhoods of LA through dive bars and Skid Row. And that's before he finds the body at The Brody Hotel. Who will get to her first, Marlowe, Anne, or the men chasing her fortune? And does she want to be found?

Discover the rest of the inimitable Philip Marlowe series - nine classic Chandler adventures, from The Big Sleep to The Long Goodbye, available now in paperback and eBook from Penguin Books.

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Readers love The Second Murderer:

'I must congratulate Denise Mina for bravely stepping into the shoes of Raymond Chandler and continuing the tales of the much loved Philip Marlowe... I think the author has done a great job capturing the essence of Marlowe such as his duelling dialogue with other characters or his descriptions of the heat soaked LA landscape in midsummer. The Chandler sarcastic humour is also present....one line I cant seem to find but from memory was something like..." this place was so sleazy even the rats had to wipe their feet on the way out". Brilliant! I encourage all fans of the genre to read this book. It is very well written and much like Chandlers books, the descriptions are so vivid you feel you are in each scene.' Michael N., 5 stars