The Barbarous Coast

"Set in Southern California, [this novel] takes Lew Archer in search of a girl who jackknifed too suddenly from high diving to high living, and leads him to an ex-fighter with an unexplained movie contract, a big-time gambler with a producer for a cover, the ghost of an eighteen-year-old girl whose murder was never solved, and finally to an answer he would rather not have known." -- From dust jacket