'The Big Sleep'

This crime novel is known for its complexity and varying characters all playing different roles with different intentions, many of them secret.

It is often tough keeping up with these characters, who they are and what they want. And by the time you think the mystery is solved there comes Ray Chandler with another twist, another truth and another turn of the screw.

How complex is this novel? Chandler was shocked to learn after publication that the murder of the man in the car dumped in the bay was never explained.

It was not only the basis for the Bogart-Bacall film, but also for the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski.