New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966. dj. Hardcover first edition - A Lew Archer novel, by this master of the hard-boiled noir detective story, one in which "the world-weary private eye unravels a complicated plot that winds through every social strata of a Southern California town." Anthony Boucher commented "I should like to venture the heretical suggestion that Ross Macdonald is a better novelist than either... Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler." Stamp of the Hollywood literary agency, H. N. Swanson, on the front endpaper, but this has still not yet been made into a film. 238 pp.