First published in 1958, the year before his death, Playback is the final complete novel by Raymond Chandler.

Playback puts Marlowe in the position of turning against his client when he’s hired to follow a gorgeous redhead. The tail, traveling under the name Eleanor King, has recently been acquitted for murdering her husband but the father-in-law doesn’t believe that justice has been served. Marlowe follows Eleanor to Esmerelda, a small town, where things quickly turn into a muddled mystery involving blackmail, murder, and gangsters.