Zbogom, dragana moja

Marlowe, a cynic and moralist, receives a routine missing person case, but becomes entangled in a web of corruption, betrayal and violence. Big, impulsive Moose Malloy, fresh out of prison, seeks out his lost love Velma Valento at the old Florian's nightclub, now reserved for blacks. In the chaos, Malloy kills the new owner and disappears, leaving Marlowe to investigate under the watchful eye of an indifferent Lt. Nulty.

With the help of whiskey, Marlowe tempts the widow Jessie Florian, who reveals to him that Velma is dead and hands over her photograph. A new client quickly appears, the arrogant Lindsay Marriott, who sends him down a dark avenue with a ransom for a stolen pearl necklace. Marlowe is beaten and Marriott is dead – a victim of murder. He is rescued by Anne Riordan, the daughter of a parole officer, who discovers that the necklace belongs to the young, seductive Velma Grayle, wife of rich old man Lewis Grayle, a former singer under a false name.

The investigation leads to the fake psychiatrist Jules Amthor, a marijuana dealer, and Dr. Sonderborg, who drugs Marlowe in a private clinic. On the run, Marlowe connects the threads: Marriott was blackmailing wealthy women alongside Amthor, and Florian was instrumental in the schemes. Under pressure from the honest Lieutenant Randall, he uncovers the corrupt Bay City police under Chief Wax and the criminal Laird Brunette, the owner of a gambling yacht outside territorial waters.

Through clashes with gangsters and lies, Marlowe meets Velma - she is Valento, the traitor who sent Malloy to prison for robbery and now manipulates her husband and lovers. In a dramatic confrontation on the yacht, Velma kills Malloy and flees, but justice catches up with her in Baltimore, where she kills herself after shooting a detective. Chandler's style - sharp with dialogue, metaphors of rain and smoke - dissects the American dream in a swamp of greed and moral decay, where the hero remains alone but unbroken.