Sleeping Beauty (Lew Archer Series #17)

Sleeping Beauty plunges detective Lew Archer into a fascinating and intricate case connected to a disastrous oil spill on the Southern California coast. He becomes involved with three generations of the imposing Lennox family whose offshore oil platform caused the spill; and whose young heiress, glimpsed for a haunting moment on the beach-clutching an oil-drenched sea bird in her arms---has disappeared. While on her trail Archer finds himself journeying into a horrendous past, into the hidden lives of a family twisted by money, power, and a compulsive instinct for infidelity-between husbands and wives, parents and children, friends, dependents, duty, and ultimately to the earth itself.

As the novel moves to its climactic and complex resolution, the listener is once more held fast by the unique art of Ross Macdonald: crackling suspense rooted in strong perception of reality.