Playback is a novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler featuring the private detective Philip Marlowe.

Through intermediaries, an anonymous client hires Marlowe to find Betty Mayfield, who is traveling under the name Eleanor King.

During her train ride west, Mayfield had been recognized by a man who then tried to blackmail her, for reasons disclosed at the end of the story.

Marlowe also has an encounter in a hotel lobby with a reflective elderly gentleman, Henry Clarendon IV, which gives rise to an extended philosophical conversation.

But the judge in the case, who saw more than a reasonable doubt, in keeping with North Carolina law granted a standard defense motion for a directed acquittal after the verdict of the tainted jury was returned.

The New York Times called it "smooth, competent, enjoyable and undistinguished... after a wait of four and a half years it's a mousy labor from such a mountain.

[3] The opening lines of the second chapter served as inspiration for Jonathan Lethem's science fiction–detective novel Gun, with Occasional Music: "There was nothing to it.