Raymond Chandler in the Marble Orchard — William F. Nolan

The year is 1936, and Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Erle Stanley Gardner have taken to solving crimes as amateur detectives. As narrated by Chandler, their latest adventure begins in East Los Angeles, with the discovery of what is apparently the ritual suicide of his wife's former husband in a Chinese cemetery -- but was it really suicide? Following a trail of clues from the coastal splendors of the William Randolph Hearst castle to the rococo Victorian mansions of Bunker Hill, the trio of sleuths are helped -- and hindered -- by an odd assortment of characters like the mysterious screen star known as the Vampire Queen, a missing sister who prefers to stay missing, and an ex-stage actor with a penchant for using his fists, and by such real-life personalities as Shirley Temple, Charlie Chaplin, Hedda Hopper, and Orson Welles. The Marble Orchard is a complex, colorful, and ultimately dangerous adventure -- a richly textured thriller that also celebrates the joys of love and marriage between Chandler and his exceptional wife, Cissy.