Marlowe visits General Sternwood in his sweltering greenhouse and is hired to deal with blackmailer Arthur Geiger.

Marlowe breaks into Geiger's hillside house after hearing shots and finds Geiger dead with Carmen drugged and naked.

Marlowe drives Carmen home to the Sternwood estate, then returns to Geiger's house to find the body gone.

DA investigator Ohls calls Marlowe to the beach, where Owen Taylor's body is found in a submerged Sternwood car.

Vivian visits Marlowe's office and shows him a blackmail photo of naked Carmen, demanding he help stop the extortionists.

Eddie Mars arrives at Geiger's house, discovers dried blood on the floor, threatens Marlowe with armed guards, and kicks him out.

Marlowe confronts Joe Brody at his apartment and forces him to hand over Carmen's nude photo and its negative.

Brody is shot dead answering his door; Marlowe chases the killer through the streets and captures Carol Lundgren.

Marlowe discovers Geiger's body lying in candlelit state on a bed in Lundgren's locked bedroom at Geiger's house.

Marlowe reports to DA Wilde, Captain Cronjager, and Ohls; the group arranges a cover-up to keep all scandals out of the press.

Marlowe visits the Missing Persons Bureau and learns that Regan's car was found at the hotel where Mars's wife was staying.

Marlowe goes to meet Harry Jones that night but overhears hitman Canino poison Jones with cyanide hidden in a whiskey glass.

Canino beats Marlowe unconscious at the rural safe house, and Marlowe wakes up shackled on a couch.

With Mona Mars's help, Marlowe kills Canino in a shootout, then drives Mona to DA Wilde's house to report.

Marlowe tells Vivian that Carmen killed Regan at the oil derricks; Vivian admits she paid Mars to dispose of the body.

Philip Marlowe is hired by aging oil magnate General Sternwood to deal with a blackmailer named Arthur Geiger, who holds gambling debts over his reckless daughter Carmen. Investigating Geiger's hillside home, Marlowe stumbles onto a murder scene and a criminal conspiracy far deeper than he expected. After solving the immediate murders of Geiger and Joe Brody and helping arrange a police cover-up, Marlowe turns his attention to the disappearance of Vivian's missing husband Rusty Regan. He traces the case through Eddie Mars's criminal network and his hired killer Lash Canino, culminating in a deadly confrontation at a rural safe house east of the city. The investigation ultimately leads back to the Sternwood family itself — Carmen killed Regan for rejecting her advances, and Vivian paid Mars to hide the body. Marlowe closes the case by giving Vivian three days to institutionalize Carmen, choosing to protect the family from scandal one final time.

The central case from blackmail to murder to hidden family secrets.

Carmen Sternwood flirts boldly with Marlowe in the gallery, then falls backward and forces him to catch her.

Vivian interrogates Marlowe in her white sitting room, fishing to learn whether he was hired to find Regan.

Marlowe poses as a customer at Geiger's Hollywood bookstore to observe the secretive transactions happening inside.

Marlowe follows Geiger from his store to his hillside home and spots Carmen Sternwood's car arriving at the house.

Marlowe follows a truck loading Geiger's stolen books from the store and traces it to Joe Brody's apartment building.

Carmen bursts into Brody's apartment pressing a gun to his mouth, triggering a chaotic multi-person standoff.

Ohls and Marlowe agree that the death of chauffeur Owen Taylor at the pier will be officially recorded as suicide.

Marlowe visits Mars's Cypress Club casino and asks Mars directly whether he arranged Rusty Regan's disappearance.

Vivian pushes all her roulette winnings onto a single red bet and wins an enormous fortune at Mars's casino.

Marlowe stops one of Mars's masked men from robbing Vivian of her casino winnings in the foggy parking lot.

Marlowe and Vivian kiss in his parked car at a coastal overlook before she angrily pulls away.

Marlowe arrives home to find Carmen naked in his bed and forces her to leave by threatening to throw her out.

Small-time hustler Harry Jones visits Marlowe's office and offers to sell him information about Rusty Regan's whereabouts.

Marlowe drives east through a rainstorm and gets two flat tires from tacks scattered on the road near the safe house.

General Sternwood, bedridden and frail, hires Marlowe a second time and offers him double pay to find Rusty Regan.

From the moment Marlowe arrives at the Sternwood estate and encounters the flirtatious daughters, the case grows more tangled than the simple blackmail he was hired to handle. Surveillance of Geiger's bookstore, the disappearance of stolen books, and a chaotic standoff at Brody's apartment expand Marlowe's world of suspects and complications. Once the initial murders are resolved, Marlowe navigates the glittering criminal underworld of Eddie Mars's casino, where Vivian gambles away her fortune under duress. Small-time operators like Harry Jones and Carmen's unannounced bedroom visit keep Marlowe off balance as he pieces together the larger conspiracy. A rainy drive east toward a rural safe house sets the stage for the novel's most violent confrontation. Throughout, Marlowe's interactions with clients, criminals, and law enforcement define the moral ambiguity he inhabits.

The people, places, and complications surrounding Marlowe's investigation.

Marlowe visits a legitimate bookstore near Geiger's shop and obtains a physical description of the elusive Arthur Geiger.

Marlowe opens a package taken near Geiger's store and confirms it contains professionally made illegal pornography.

Marlowe searches Geiger's house and finds a coded notebook he concludes lists hundreds of blackmail-vulnerable customers.

Marlowe and Ohls learn that Owen Taylor once tried to elope with Carmen before the Sternwoods had him arrested.

Vivian tells Marlowe she plans to borrow payoff money from Eddie Mars, revealing Regan apparently fled with Mars's wife Mona.

Brody confesses to Marlowe that he stole Carmen's nude photo by impersonating a police officer at the scene of Taylor's crash.

Marlowe determines that Carol Lundgren shot Brody in mistaken revenge, having wrongly concluded that Brody murdered Geiger.

DA Wilde hands Carmen's nude photo and Geiger's blackmail materials back to Marlowe after the cover-up is finalized.

Marlowe catches the driver of the gray sedan that has been tailing him and discovers it is Harry Jones.

Agnes meets Marlowe and reveals that Mars's wife Mona is hidden in a house near a cyanide manufacturing plant east of LA.

Mona Mars cuts through Marlowe's ropes and frees him from the safe house couch despite her declared loyalty to her husband.

Marlowe lures Canino into the open by starting Canino's own car in the dark and faking the sounds of his own death.

Butler Norris tells Marlowe that General Sternwood loved Regan because Regan had a soldier's eye — a quality Norris sees in Marlowe too.

Carmen aims her gun at Marlowe at the oil derricks but the weapon is loaded with blanks; she collapses in a seizure.

Vivian confesses she hired Eddie Mars to dispose of Regan's body and agrees to send Carmen to an institution.

Beneath the surface of the blackmail case, a series of critical discoveries continually reframe everything Marlowe thinks he knows. Clues gathered near Geiger's store and inside his house — a pornography sample, a coded customer notebook, and a background portrait of Owen Taylor — point toward a vast criminal operation with roots in the Sternwood family. The deaths of Taylor, Brody, and Jones each carry their own revelations about obsession, opportunism, and Mars's reach. After Mona Mars frees Marlowe from captivity, he pieces together the truth about Rusty Regan's fate through patient deduction, a staged death, and a final test with a blank-loaded gun at the oil derricks. Carmen's seizure and Vivian's subsequent confession bring the novel's central mystery to a devastating close. The case ends not with justice but with a private arrangement — a secret buried as surely as Regan himself.