The Drowning Pool
Ross Macdonald
 Archer is hired by a woman to investigate a slanderous letter she received. The family lives in the house situated on the line between two Southern Californian towns, one an idyllic, oil-rich town, and the other the small, seedy town from which the oil comes, corrupt and destroyed by the industry. It is not long before Archer is more concerned with investigating murder instead of just blackmail. The book was the basis of the 1975 Paul Newman film of the same name, but the movie has radical departures from the plot of the novel, including moving the location to Louisiana.