Dream Town (archer, #3)

Set in early 1950s Los Angeles, the novel follows Aloysius Archer, a thirty-year-old World War II veteran and private investigator who works for Willie Dash's detective agency in Bay Town, California. On New Year's Eve 1952, Archer drives to Universal Studios to celebrate the holiday with Liberty Callahan, an aspiring actress and close friend he met years earlier in Reno. Callahan has steady work across multiple studios but has not broken through to stardom. She and Archer share a deep bond forged by surviving danger together, and though they slept together once, they chose to remain friends. Archer, however, has begun developing deeper feelings for her.

At dinner at Chasen's, a famous Hollywood restaurant, a screenwriter named Eleanor Lamb approaches their table. Lamb, a small, intense woman in her early forties who works for Green and Ransome Productions, tells Archer she believes someone is trying to kill her. She describes threatening phone calls, a bloody knife in her kitchen sink, and a dark blue Ford sedan parked outside her Malibu house. Archer agrees to take the case but suspects she is withholding information.

At a New Year's Eve party hosted by director Danny Mars and his wife, Gloria, Archer learns that Lamb is scripting a comeback film for Bette Davis, produced by Bart Green, Danny's longtime friend. After midnight, Archer calls Lamb's house and a man answers, then hangs up. Archer drives to Malibu and searches the home. In Lamb's office he finds two cards marked with an X in her Wheeldex, a rotating card-file index: one for "Jonathan Brewster" linked to the Jade Lion Bar in Chinatown, and another for Alice Jacoby, Lamb's college friend and a set designer at Warner Brothers. He also discovers hair dye proving Lamb's dark hair is not natural. Descending the stairs, Archer trips over a dead man shot between the eyes and is knocked unconscious by an unseen assailant. The victim carries no identification. Fleeing the scene, Archer encounters smugglers unloading crates from a boat on a nearby beach and escapes under gunfire.

The next day, Dash tells Archer the victim's description matches Cedric Bender, a respected private investigator from Anaheim whose car matches the blue Ford outside Lamb's house. By examining the body, Archer estimates Bender died hours before Lamb approached him at Chasen's, suggesting she may have known about the body when she sought his help.

Archer meets Cecily Ransome, Lamb's business partner, who writes him a $500 retainer to find the missing writer. In Lamb's desk he discovers matchbooks from the Jade Lion Bar. He visits Jacoby, who denies any knowledge of the Jade. A Wellesley College class photo reveals Lamb was naturally a curly blonde who has deliberately altered her appearance to resemble Ransome, suggesting a romantic connection. Ransome's granduncle, retired LAPD detective Sam Malloy, warns Archer he never trusted Lamb.

Archer infiltrates the Jade Lion and discovers it is far more than a bar. Behind its maze-like interior lie private rooms equipped with bondage gear, mirrors, and hidden cameras concealed in chandeliers, all designed to film celebrities in compromising situations for blackmail. He also finds heroin residue and sandy crates linking the bar to the beach smuggling. After a violent escape, Archer identifies the scarred man running the operation as Darren Paley, a dangerous ex-convict, war hero, and mob enforcer. Jake Nichols, a former PI who uses a wheelchair after being shot during an earlier investigation, confirms Paley's identity and reveals Paley was responsible for the shooting that paralyzed him.

The investigation widens as Archer discovers Lamb paid over $72,000 in cash for her Malibu home. He meets Bernadette Bonham, Lamb's neighbor and childhood acquaintance from Washington, D.C., at the airport upon her return from France, then follows her taxi to the Jade Lion, where she meets Paley. Archer flies to Las Vegas on Bart Green's private Beechcraft to confront the producer and learns that Green, Alice's husband Simon Jacoby, and Danny Mars are all heavy gamblers with enormous debts. Green's supposed bodyguard, Little Tony, is actually a mob enforcer ensuring Green pays what he owes. Paley captures Archer at the Sands Hotel and has him transported to the desert for execution, but Dash arrives with two associates and saves Archer's life.

Back in Los Angeles, Archer visits Bender's ransacked home office and finds that files related to Mallory Green have been removed and Bender's calendar is missing. A surviving invoice links the Beechcraft to the initials "BMG." Archer learns these stand for "Belinda Mallory Green," Bart's wife and a two-time Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, meaning she owns the plane. Archer realizes Mallory fabricated her earlier claim that she hired Bender to investigate her husband. In truth, Paley hired Bender under the reversed-initial company name "PID" (for Darren Isaac Paley) to discover who was siphoning drugs from his supply chain.

Through several confrontations, Archer assembles the full picture. Gloria Mars confesses that Lamb blackmailed her for the Malibu house money by threatening to expose Gloria's youthful membership in the Communist Party, a dangerous secret during the McCarthy era. Jacoby admits she designed the Jade's interior rooms on commission from Paley, and Archer accuses her of feeding information about the operation to Lamb for a screenplay. Actress Samantha Lourdes, Paley's ex-wife, identifies Bernadette as the woman Paley took up with after their divorce. Lamb's mother reveals that Lamb married a man named Nathaniel Sommers before the war. He abandoned Lamb in South America, changed his identity, and became Peter Bonham, making his marriage to Bernadette bigamous. Lamb moved to Malibu specifically to blackmail him.

During nighttime surveillance at the Bonhams' property, Archer and Dash witness a drug and human trafficking operation: men emerge from a backyard bomb shelter carrying crates and hooded, bound prisoners. They follow the truck to the airport, where the cargo is loaded onto the Beechcraft. The truck then leads them into an ambush near Chinatown, and Dash is shot in the back. He survives emergency surgery but is badly wounded.

Archer discovers that Paley has murdered Peter Bonham and alerts the police. He flies to Lake Tahoe, where Mallory Green's lakeside chalet serves as a drug distribution hub. Inside, Archer finds the body of pilot Steve Everett in the trunk of Mallory's car and a cache of heroin. Paley, Little Tony, and Bernadette arrive by boat. In the ensuing standoff, Eleanor Lamb, hidden inside the house, kills Little Tony, giving Archer a chance to seize a weapon. Paley and Bernadette flee to their boat, where Paley kills Bernadette by throwing her into the freezing lake. He attempts to escape in the Beechcraft, but Archer races to the airstrip and disables the plane by shooting out a propeller blade and tire, then apprehends Paley after the crash.

In the aftermath, Lamb and Mallory Green confess. Mallory partnered with Lamb and Bonham to divert drugs from Paley's pipeline, using the Beechcraft to transport shipments and fund Bart's gambling debts. Lamb orchestrated her own disappearance, approaching Archer at Chasen's knowing Bender's body was already in her house. Lamb also murdered Everett when he discovered the drugs. Police raid the Jade Lion, rescuing enslaved workers and seizing heroin. Paley is sentenced to death.

Dash recovers and returns to Bay Town. Archer goes to Callahan to confess his feelings but finds she has begun dating Harold Stevens, a stable accountant-turned-producer. Callahan tells Archer she can no longer live with the constant fear of his being killed. Accepting this loss, Archer opens his own private investigation office in Los Angeles, on the top floor of Nichols's building, beginning a new chapter defined by independence and resolve.