Dream Town
The Gripping Third Thriller in the Bestselling Aloysius Archer Series
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4.2 • 97 Ratings
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
'Baldacci is the master of American detective stories' – Jeffrey Archer, author of Nothing Ventured
Private Investigator and WWII veteran, Aloysius Archer, returns to solve a new case in Hollywood in Dream Town, a riveting thriller from international number 1 bestselling author, David Baldacci.
*****
All that glitters . . .
1952, Los Angeles. It is New Year’s Eve and PI Aloysius Archer is dining with his friend and rising Hollywood actress Liberty Callahan when they’re approached by Eleanor Lamb, a screenwriter who would like to hire him, as she suspects someone is trying to kill her.
Murder and mystery
A visit to Lamb’s Malibu residence leaves Archer knocked unconscious after he stumbles over a dead body in the hallway – and Lamb seems to have vanished. With the police now involved in the case, a close friend and colleague of Lamb’s employs Archer to find out what has happened to the screenwriter.
The City of Angels – or somewhere much, much darker?
Archer’s investigation takes him from the rich, glamorous and glitzy LA to the seedy, dark side of the city, and onward to the gambling mecca of Las Vegas, just now hitting its stride as a hot spot for celebrities and a money-making machine for the mob. In a place where cops and crooks work hand in hand, Archer will cross paths with Hollywood stars, politicians and notorious criminals. He’ll almost die several times, and he’ll discover bodies and secrets – from the canyons and beaches of Malibu and the luxurious mansions of Bel Air and Beverly Hills, to the narcotics clubs of Chinatown.
With the help of Liberty and his PI partner Willie Dash, Archer will risk everything and leave no stone unturned to find the missing Eleanor Lamb – and in bringing justice to killers who would love nothing better than to plant Archer six feet under.
Although the Aloysius Archer novels can be read in any order, Dream Town is the third thriller in the series, following One Good Deed and A Gambling Man.
Enjoy more of Baldacci's enthralling writing with To Die For, the electrifying Travis Devine thriller.
*****
KILLER TWISTS. HEROES TO BELIEVE IN. TRUST BALDACCI.
'One of the world's thriller masters' - Daily Mail
'Baldacci is still peerless' - Sunday Times
'One of the all-time best thriller authors' - Lisa Gardner
'Baldacci delivers, every time!' - Lisa Scottoline
'A master storyteller' - Associated Press
'Baldacci cuts everyone's grass - Grisham's, Ludlum's, even Patricia Cornwell's - and more than gets away with it' - People
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Baldacci's welcome third outing for PI Aloysius Archer (after 2021's A Gambling Man) takes Archer, a decorated WWII vet who works for a detective agency in Bay Town, Calif., to Los Angeles to celebrate New Year's Eve 1952 with actress and love interest Liberty Callahan. That evening, at a restaurant frequented by such stars as Frank Sinatra and Groucho Marx, Callahan introduces Archer to her friend Eleanor Lamb, a screenwriter working on a script for Bette Davis. After Lamb learns of Archer's profession, she seeks to hire him because she's gotten middle-of-the-night–hang-up calls, and someone entered her Malibu home and left a bloody knife in her kitchen sink. Lamb's fears for her life seem justified when she disappears. Right after Archer finds an unknown man shot to death in her house, someone bludgeons the gumshoe into unconsciousness. The tension rises as his subsequent investigation places his own life in danger. Baldacci can be a bit overfond of similes and metaphors (ocean breakers hurl "their sound tentacles"), but otherwise solid prose nicely evokes the traditional hard-boiled whodunit. Raymond Chandler fans will be entertained.
