''I can''t make your girl come back if she doesn''t want to. I told you that on the phone'' But something changes...

''The finest series of detective novels ever written by an American'' William Goldman

''A beautiful job, rich in plot and character...surprising and shocking'' NEW YORK TIMES

''I love the Lew Archer books'' James Ellroy

When Lew Archer is hired to find out the truth about a suspiciously suave Frenchman who has run off with his client''s girlfriend, it looks like a simple enough case. But things start to look very different when Archer connects the elusive foreigner with a seven-year-old suicide and a mountain of gambling debts.

BLACK MONEY is Ross Macdonald at his very finest, revealing the skull beneath the sun-kissed skin of Southern California.