Animal Factory

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Joseph Hansen

'After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successor' The Times Dave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansen's groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald. John Oats is dead; drowned in the treacherous waves of the Pacific. But was it accident, suicide, or murder? Between the mysteriously absent son, the bitter ex-wife and the current lover, there are plenty of people with reason to lie to Dave about what really happened that night - and why.

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Sharon Gilligan

In this exciting sequel to Danger in High Places, freelance photographer Alix Nicholson is looking forward to teaching photography at Pacific Arts, a college idyllically located on California's North Coast. But as she quickly discovers, there are ugly goings-on beneath the surface beauty of her surroundings. When her landlady, a real estate developer, turns up dead, and the police arrest Leah Claire, the woman's much younger lover, Alix is rapidly drawn into a complex web of intrigue and murder. As she frantically searches for a way to free Leah, Alix unexpectedly finds herself at the dawn of a new romance... and on the brink of her own destruction.

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Daniel Pyne

Marginal Hollywood actor Jack Baylor ends an affair with the wife of his best friend, Tory, and knowing Torys anger-management issues, he retreats to the California desert town of Twentynine Palms to let the metaphorical dust settle. There he promptly begins an affair with Mona, a young mother of two. But Tory arrives in the town bent on revenge, Mona and her kids disappear, and Jacks motel room is awash with blood. Jack is promptly arrested and must escape to clear himself.

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James Ellroy

The author of *The Black Dahlia* presents the powerful second novel in his L.A. Quartet. In *The Big Nowhere*, three men are caught up in a massive web of ambition, perversion and deceit. A remarkably vivid portrait of a remarkable time and place.