Like many Southern California millionaires, Ralph Sampson keeps odd company. There’s the sun-worshiping holy man whom Sampson once gave his very own mountain and the fading actress with sidelines in astrology and S&M. Now, one of Sampson’s friends may have arranged his kidnapping. As private...

Phoebe Wycherly was missing two months before her wealthy father hired Lew Archer to find her. That was plenty of time for a young girl who wanted to disappear to do so thoroughly—or for someone to make her disappear. And before he could locate the Wycherly girl, Archer had to reckon with the...

Lew Archer knew he shouldn’t have taken the case, but Alex Kincaid seemed so desperate. Kincaid’s loving new bride Dolly had just inexplicably walked out on him, leaving Kincaid more than a little fearful for her sanity—and her safety. So Archer reluctantly agreed to help Kincaid find her...

When a millionaire matriarch is found floating face down in the family pool, the prime suspects are her good-for-nothing son and his wife, who stand to inherit, as well as a questionable chauffeur and a tycoon of a company trying to get the woman’s property for the oil under it. Private...