Part of Lew Archer, book 2
First published 1996
A wealthy matriarch floats dead in her family's swimming pool. Detective Lew Archer arrives at the sprawling L.A. suburban estate to find a household full of suspects. The woman's worthless son stands to inherit everything. His teenage daughter possesses both beauty and cunning beyond her years. Archer digs deeper into the family's secrets and discovers a web of corporate corruption stretching far beyond the mansion's walls. Each family member harbors enough hatred to kill. Money flows through shell companies while personal vendettas simmer behind closed doors. The detective must navigate between corporate boardrooms and bitter family feuds. Archer realizes that in this moral wasteland of greed and betrayal, motives for murder multiply like shadows. The swimming pool death represents only the surface of deeper crimes.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful
Tropes: moral-ambiguity, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Los Angeles, United States
Period: 20th-century
244 pages · Paperback · Vintage Crime/Black Lizard