This is one of the later Lew Archer novels. Archer is middleaged, methodical. He is, basically, Paul Newman in his prime. Newman played him in Harper and The Drowning Pool but Peter Graves took the role in the TV adaptation of The Underground Man.
The story is essentially one of a disfunctional family in and around old money. The old rich are aloof and stuck in their ways, the infiltrators are either nouveau riche or grifters. Macdonald comes up with a brilliant metaphor. The Broadhurst family owned the entire canyon until Mrs Broadhurst entered into a dubious deal with property developer Brian Kilpatrick. Now the hills and forest above the new housing are ablaze.
Mrs Broadhurst married a fly-by-night pilot after the war. He soon left her for a local teacher. Mrs B's son Stanley is obsessed with finding his father - but now Stanley has disappeared. He was last seen in his sports car with a very young woman who the day before was so stoned she jumped off a yacht into the sea and Stanley's young son Ronny, whom Archer had come across in his yard that very morning. It's all very incestuous (without actually being incestuous) - a restricted number of closely interrelated relationships most of which involve abandonment.
Ross Macdonald (Kenneth Millar, 1915-83) was a master craftsman and was in his prime with the Lew Archer series. The story moves along at a brisk place, the writing chiselled to a fine edge without ever going to extremes. There is psychological depth, suspense, and whilst Archer himself never seems to be in danger, the necessary jeopardy comes from the fire, which is especially effective given what happened lately to Southern California.
Another (#21) in Penguin's magnificent Crime & Espionage series of Modern Classics.
