The suggestively named Dix Steele, a cynical vet with a chip on his shoulder about the opposite sex, is the LAPD's top suspect. Dix knows enough to watch his step, especially since his best friend is on the force, but when he meets the luscious Laurel Gray—a femme fatale with brains—something begins to crack. The basis for extraordinary performances by Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame in the 1950 film version of the book, In a Lonely Place tightens the suspense with taut, hard-boiled prose and stunningly undoes the conventional noir plot.

    The ambitious District Attorney or the campaigning publisher of the Rockville Gazette, with their faith in fingerprints and lie-detectors, might think Bill Eldon dated, but he knows Rockville district inside out.In 'The Case of the Runaway Blonde' the body of a girl is found on a freshly ploughed strip of land. And in 'The Case of the Hungry Horse' a young woman has apparently been kicked to death in a dark stable . . .This is Bill's territory, and it is his feel for cornspun characters, cattle and crops - and not the manoeuvres of the smart lawyers and politicos - that crucial to deciphering both cases.