In this noir mystery, PI Lew Archer is hired to track down a missing child, but becomes embroiled in a baffling forest fire that threatens an affluent Southern California community.

Lew Archer has been hired to investigate a burglary at the mission-style mansion of Irene and Larry Chalmers. The prime suspect, their son Nick, has a talent for disappearing, and they are a family with money and memories to burn.

Private detective Lew Archer is engaged to trace a missing spouse, who has vanished - apparently of her own free will - only a day into her honeymoon. But no sooner has he found her than he he finds himself entangled in two murders.

This Lew Archer novel opens with a well dressed woman hesitantly engaging Archer's services at his LA office. Soon he is digging up all kinds of secrets in her oil-rich home town.

20 years ago, Anthony Galton vanished, along with his bride and several thousand dollars of the Galton fortune. Now his dying mother wants him found, and Lew Archer is on the case. But what Archer finds - a headless skeleton, a clever con and a terrified blonde - reveals a game whose stakes are so high that someone is willing to kill.