In this masterful Macdonald mystery, the desert air is hot with sex and betrayal, death and madness, and only Lew Archer can make sense of a killer who makes murder a work of art.

The era is the 1970s, the settin, Southern California. Private investigator Lew Archer has been hired to retrieve a stolen canvas reputed to be the work of the celebrated Richard Chantry, who vanished in 1950 from his home in Santa Teresa. It is the portrait of

When private investigator Mike Hammer accompanies a conservative politician to Moscow on a fact-finding mission, he is arrested and imprisoned by the KGB on a bogus charge. He quickly escapes, creating an international incident by getting into a firefight with Russian agents.

On his stateside return, the government is none too happy with Hammer. Russia is insisting upon his extradition, and various government agencies are following him. A

A respected surgeon and rare book collector is brutally murdered in his elegant Manhattan home, just hours after showing a book dealer the fifteenth-century manual of black magic—a grimoire—he'd received from a grateful patient. Now the healer's blood is everywhere—and only the priceless grimoire is missing.

The horrific death of her beloved father has shattered Beatrice O'Connell's quiet, sane, and orderly world. Only by