Part of Lew Archer, book 9
First published 1998
Private detective Lew Archer takes what seems like a routine missing person case. Phoebe Wycherly, daughter of a wealthy man, vanished two months ago. Her father finally decides to hire professional help. Two months gives a young woman plenty of opportunity to hide herself completely. It also gives someone else enough time to eliminate her permanently. Archer discovers that finding Phoebe means confronting her mother first. The Wycherly woman presents a chilling figure. This unnaturally detached blonde mother maintains multiple homes across different locations. She guards numerous secrets from her past. Most troubling of all, dead bodies seem to follow in her path wherever she goes. The detective must navigate through the mother's web of deceptions and violence. Each clue about Phoebe's whereabouts reveals another layer of family dysfunction. The case forces Archer to untangle decades of buried crimes and twisted relationships. What started as a search for a missing girl becomes a confrontation with maternal evil.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: confrontation, unreliable-narrator
Setting: United States
Period: 20th-century
288 pages · Paperback · Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Content warnings: violence