Inherent Vice

Thomas Pynchon · b. 1937 · USA

Why it matters

Stoner private eye Doc Sportello stumbles through a Los Angeles land-development conspiracy just as the sixties curdle into the Manson-shadowed seventies. Late Pynchon in a lighter key: still paranoid, now genuinely funny and almost easy to follow.

At a glance

A conventional noir plot and breezier prose make this Pynchon's most approachable novel.