Not since the novels of Nathaniel West has the theme of American innocence grinding to a stop at the polluted waters of the Pacific so consistently reverberated through a body of writing.''-Detroit News

Phoebe Wycherly was missing two months before her wealthy father hired Archer to find her. That was plenty of time for a young girl who wanted to disappear to do so thoroughly--or for someone to make her disappear. Before he can find ...

For detective Lew Archer, a comparatively straightforward assignment--to dig up information about a rich man's suspicious son-in-law-to-be--uncovers a grand design for killing leading from the citrus belt into Mexico. Reprint. NYT.

When Archer is hired to get the goods on the Frenchman whos run off with his clients girlfriend, it looks like a simple case of alienated affectionsuntil he discovers the mysterious foreigner is connected to a seven-year-old suicide a...

When a millionaire matriarch is found floating face down in the family pool, the prime suspects are her good-for-nothing son and his seductive teenaged daughter. In The Drowning Pool, Lew Archer takes this case in the L.A. suburbs and...

In the character of Lew Archer, Ross Macdonald redefined the private eye as a roving conscience who walks the treacherous frontier between criminal guilt and human sin -- and in so doing, gave the American crime novel a psychological ...

As a mysterious fire rages through an affluent community in Southern California, Lew Archer tracks a missing--and possibly kidnapped--child and uncovers and entire secret history of wayward parents, wounded offspring, and murder. Alon...

When Lew Archer is hired to get the goods on the suspiciously suave Frenchman who's run off with his client's girlfriend, it looks like a simple case of alienated affections. Things look different when the mysterious foreigner turns o...

He was a son who hadn't known his father very well.  It was a town shaken by a grisly murder—his father's murder.  Johnny Weatherly was home from a war and wandering.  When he found out that his father had been assassinated on a ...

Lew Archer knew he shouldn't have taken the case, but Alex Kincaid seemed so desperate. Kincaid's loving new bride, Dolly, had just inexplicably walked out on him, leaving Kincaid more than a little fearful for her sanity and her safe...

A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Anniversary Edition of The Chill by Ross Macdonald. Featuring an introduction by James Ellroy. In The Chilla distraught young man hires private investigator Lew Archer to track down his runaway bride. But...

When a millionaire matriarch is found floating face-down in the family pool, the prime suspects are her good-for-nothing son and his seductive teenage daughter. In The Drowning Pool, Lew Archer takes this case in the L.A. suburbs and ...

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 st...

A hard-faced woman clad in a blue mink stole and dripping with diamonds hires Lew Archer to track down her former maid, who she claims has stolen her jewelry. Archer can tell he's being fed a line, but curiosity gets the better of hi...

Silken skin pale against dark hair, red lips provocatively smiling at him—that's how Lieutenant Bret Taylor remembered Lorraine.  He was drunk when he married her, stone cold sober when he found her dead.  Out on the sunlit street...

In a rundown house in Santa Monica, Mrs. Samuel Lawrence presses fifty crumpled bills into Lew Archer's hand and asks him to find her wandering daughter, Galatea. Described as ‘crazy for men’ and without discrimination, sh...

In the last days of World War II, a sailor discovers a transcontinental conspiracyIt is February 1945, and the war in the Pacific is nearing its climax. In Hawaii on his way to a new post, US Navy ensign Sam Drake stumbles across t...

Almost twenty years have passed since Anthony Galton disappeared, along with a suspiciously streetwise bride and several thousand dollars of his family's fortune. Now Anthony's mother wants him back and has hired Lew Archer to find hi...