A crime novel in which a young man, just back from the war, discovers that his father has been killed on a street corner, and decides to solve the case himself, but this means immersing himself in the brutal underworld in which his father moved freely.

As a mysterious fire rages through the hills above a privileged town in Southern California, Archer tracks a missing child who may be the pawn in a marital struggle or the victim of a bizarre kidnapping. What he uncovers amid the ashes is murder-and a trail of motives as combustible as gasoline. -- from Amazon.

Lew Archer has been hired to locate Phoebe Wycherly by her wealthy father, but first Archer must deal with "the Wycherly woman, Phoebe's mother, an eerily unmaternal blonde who kept too many residences, had too many secrets, and left too many corpses in her wake."--Back cover.

"The beautiful, high-diving blonde had Hollywood dreams and stars in her eyes but now she seems to have disappeared without a trace. Hired by her hotheaded husband and her rummy "uncle," Lew Archer sniffs around Malibu and finds the stink of blackmail, blood-money, and murder on every pricey silk shirt. Beset by dirty cops, a bumptious boxer turned silver screen pretty boy and a Hollywood mogul with a dark past, Archer discovers the secret of a grisly...

In The Chill a distraught young man hires private investigator Lew Archer to track down his runaway bride. But no sooner has he found Dolly Kincaid than Archer finds himself entangled in two murders, one twenty years old, the other so recent that the blood is still wet. What ensues is a detective novel of nerve-racking suspense, desperately believable characters, and one of the most intricate plots ever spun by an American crime writer. -- from Amazon....

As Lew Archer investigates the kidnapping of Southern California millionaire Ralph Sampson, he is drawn from the canyon sanctuaries of the megarich to the casual violence of seedy jazz joints.