It’s mid-September, a heatwave has descended on the parched hills of LA and Private Detective Philip Marlowe is called to the Montgomery estate, an almost mythic place sitting high on top of Beverly Hills. Wealthy twenty-two-year-old Chrissie Montgomery, set to inherit an enormous fortune, is missing.

She’s a walking target, ripe for someone to get their claws into. Her dying father, along with his sultry bottle blonde girlfriend, wants her found before that happens. They’ve hired Anna Riorden, Marlowe’s nemesis, too. The search takes them to the roughest neighbourhoods of LA through dive bars and Skid Row. And that’s before he finds the body at The Brody Hotel. Who will get to her first, Marlowe, Anne, or the men chasing her fortune? And does she want to be found?