Find a Victim

The first British hardback was published in Cassell & Company's Crime Connoisseur series in 1955, the same year that a French translation appeared as Vous qui entrez ici (Presses de la Cité, collection 'Un Mystère' #202).

At this period the author was writing under the name John Ross Macdonald and was also identified as Kenneth Millar on the Knopf dust jacket.

[3] On the way from southern California to a court hearing in Sacramento, private detective Lew Archer comes across a trucker who has been shot and dumped by the roadside.

He learns that Anne and Kerrigan had spent a recent weekend there and also speaks to MacGowan, the only permanent resident of the resort, who turns out to be Jo Summer's grandfather.

Believing that Butler does not want to get to the truth, Archer goes to District Attorney Westmore, who gives him details of Bozey's recent involvement in a bank robbery: since the notes were recorded, he needed to raise ready cash from the hijacked whiskey consignment.

From Kerrigan's wife Archer learns that her husband was in financial difficulties and his motive for involvement in the hijacking was to get away with Jo, using the pay-off – not realizing that Bozey had swindled him by using the hot money from the robbery.

As they are talking, MacGowan arrives with the news that Jo had been up to Lake Perdida but had left again to search for Bozey and was heading for the abandoned mining camp of Traverse.