The Instant Enemy

She raked her dyed head with her fingers, then rose and went to the picture window. With her back to me, her body was simply an object, an obdalisque shape against the light. Framed in dark-red curtains, the sea looked old as the Mediterranean, old as sin. —From Ross Macdonald's THE INSTANT ENEMY featuring Lew Archer and first published in 1968.

"Moves fast and is full of surprises. . . . The best work Macdonald has done in years." —The New York Times

"A more serious and complex writer than Chandler and Hammett ever were." —Eudora Welty