Mystery begets mystery for private eye Jim Sader in this hardboiled classic by one of America’s pioneering women crime writers. What starts as a missing persons case grows more puzzling with the discovery of another strangely coincidental disappearance. Sader finds himself deep in a multilayered intrigue revolving around oil and real estate and the sleazy underpinnings of Long Beach, California, in the 1950s. Taut, suspenseful, and gritty: many consider this Dolores Hitchens’ best novel.

Dolores Hitchens (1907–1973) was a highly prolific author who wrote under several names. She is one of eight midcentury masters collected in the Library of America edition Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1950s.

Steph Cha is the author of Your House Will Pay and the Juniper Song crime trilogy.