At a party to which he gets himself invited, Archer becomes aware of the tensions in the family, especially after the recent arrival of Francis Marvell, English author of the play in which Slocum is acting at the local theatre.

Archer discovers where Reavis has an apartment in Los Angeles and that his true name is Patrick Ryan, but is caught going through his papers and knocked out.

Having failed to bribe him to stay silent, Kilbourne turns Archer over to his criminal associate Melliotes to torture him in a private hydrotherapy clinic.

Leaving him to the future care of Francis Marvell, Archer confronts Cathy, who confesses that she had murdered her supposed grandmother in a muddled attempt to restore family harmony.

"[2] Seeing the character’s potential, himself, Macdonald commented to his publisher, Alfred Knopf, that "I have an idea that Archer as he becomes well known will do quite well for both of us" while measuring his own performance against Raymond Chandler's.

[4] Slocum's companion, the gay playwright Francis Marvell, with his stringy neck and bobbing Adam's apple, is claimed to be based on W. H. Auden, Macdonald's former professor at the University of Michigan in 1938 [5] The New York Times called the book "a fast moving, smoothly written first rate whodunit"[6] and named it one of the top mysteries of 1950.

[7] The later 1975 movie The Drowning Pool was loosely based on the novel but made radical departures from the plot, particularly in moving the location to Louisiana.