Inherent Vice

First UK edition. 8vo. Pp. [x], 369, [5, blank]. Publisher's black cloth, lettered in gilt to spine; navy endpapers. Jacket art by Darshan Zenith (priced £18.99 on the front flap).

Author's seventh novel. A darkly comic detective noir set in the tail end of psychedelic 1960's L.A., the plot follows sleuth Larry "Doc" Sportello whose ex-girlfriend asks him to investigate a plot to kidnap a prominent land developer. Basis for the 2014 Paul Thomas Anderson film, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon and Josh Brolin. "[A] Great American Read – a terrific pastiche of California noir, wonderfully amusing throughout... and a poignant evocation of the last flowering of the '60s, just before everything changed and passed into myth or memory." –Michael Dirda, Washington Post