The first book in Ross Macdonald's acclaimed Lew Archer series introduces the detective who redefined the role of the American private eye and gave the crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity only hinted at before.
Like many Southern California millionaires, Ralph Sampson keeps odd company. There's the sun-worshipping holy man whom Sampson once gave his very own mountain; the fading actress with sidelines in astrology and S&M....

The desert air is hot with sex and betrayal, death and madness and only Archer can make sense of a killer who makes murder a work of art. Finding a purloined portrait of a leggy blonde was supposed to be an easy paycheck for Detective Lew Archer, but that was before the bodies began piling up. Suddenly, Archer find himself smack in the middle of a decades-long mystery of a brilliant artist who walked into the desert and simply disappeared. He left...

Lew Archer hunts a killer through the glittering, corrupt world of the Hollywood-Las Vegas axis -- crime, violence, gambling, male and female sex for sale -- a savage, luxurious jungle.

"In a small college town south of Los Angeles, Lew Archer investigates three murders, two in the past, one in the present" --

Has Tom Hillman run away from his exclusive reform school, or has he been kidnapped? Are his wealthy parents protecting him or their own guilty secrets? And why does every clue lead Lew Archer to an abandoned Hollywood hotel, where starlets and sailors once rubbed shoulders with grifters -- and where the present clientele includes a brand-new corpse.

Private detective Lew Archer challenges the power and ruthlessness of an oil dynasty responsible for a spill on the Southern California coast.