When a chance encounter makes him a witness to the abduction of a child, private detective Lew Archer can't help but be drawn into the case, pursuing a trail that leads all too quickly to murder. While forest fires rage in the hills around Los Angeles, threatening the homes of some of the city's wealthiest families, Archer unearths a hidden history of failed marriages, runaway children, and a man's life consumed by a search for the father who abandoned him.

Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer mysteries rewrote the conventions of the detective novel with their credible, humane hero, and with Macdonald's insight and moral complexity won new literary respectability for the hardboiled genre previously pioneered by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. They have also received praise from such celebrated writers as William Goldman, Jonathan Kellerman, Eudora Welty and Elmore Leonard.

About the Author
MacDonald served as president of The Mystery Writers of America in 1965, received the Silver Dagger in 1964 and the Gold Dagger in 1965 from The British Crime Writers Association, and in 1981, received The Eye, the Lifetime Achievement Award from The Private Eye Writers of America.

Reviews
I love the Lew Archer books. -- James Ellroy
The finest series of detective novels ever written by an American. -- William Goldman
A more serious and complex writer than Chandler and Hammett ever were -- Eudora Welty
America's greatest crime writer -- Elmore Leonard
Ross MacDonald is very important to me. I love the Lew Archer books -- James Ellroy



Book Information
ISBN 9780141196589
Author Ross Macdonald
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Penguin Classics
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 237g
Dimensions(mm) 197mm * 130mm * 19mm