In noir master Raymond Chandlers Playback, Philip Marlowe is hired by an influential lawyer hes never heard of to tail a gorgeous redhead, but then decides hed rather help out the redhead. Shes been acquitted of her alcoholic husbands murder, but her father-in-law prefers not to take the courts word for it. Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence: -- Ross Macdonald