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Lew Archer #6
The Barbarous Coast
The beautiful, high-diving blonde had Hollywood dreams and stars in her eyes but now she seems to have disappeared without a trace. Hired by her hotheaded husband and her rummy “uncle,” Lew Archer sniffs around Malibu and finds the stink of blackmail, blood-money, and murder on every pricey silk shirt. Beset by dirty cops, a bumptious boxer turned silver screen pretty boy and a Hollywood mogul with a dark past, Archer discovers the secret of a grisly murder that just won't stay hidden.Lew Archer navigates through the watery, violent world of wealth and privilege, in this electrifying story of obsession gone mad.
247 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
85 people are currently reading
644 people want to read
About the author
Ross Macdonald
159 books809 followersRoss Macdonald is the pseudonym of the American-Canadian writer of crime fiction Kenneth Millar. He is best known for his series of hardboiled novels set in southern California and featuring private detective Lew Archer.
Millar was born in Los Gatos, California, and raised in his parents' native Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, where he started college. When his father abandoned his family unexpectedly, Macdonald lived with his mother and various relatives, moving several times by his sixteenth year. The prominence of broken homes and domestic problems in his fiction has its roots in his youth.
In Canada, he met and married Margaret Sturm (Margaret Millar)in 1938. They had a daughter, Linda, who died in 1970.
He began his career writing stories for pulp magazines. Millar attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a Phi Beta Kappa key and a Ph.D. in literature. While doing graduate study, he completed his first novel, The Dark Tunnel, in 1944. At this time, he wrote under the name John Macdonald, in order to avoid confusion with his wife, who was achieving her own success writing as Margaret Millar. He then changed briefly to John Ross Macdonald before settling on Ross Macdonald, in order to avoid mixups with contemporary John D. MacDonald. After serving at sea as a naval communications officer from 1944 to 1946, he returned to Michigan, where he obtained his Ph.D. degree.
Macdonald's popular detective Lew Archer derives his name from Sam Spade's partner, Miles Archer, and from Lew Wallace, author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Macdonald first introduced the tough but humane private eye in the 1946 short story Find the Woman. A full-length novel, The Moving Target, followed in 1949. This novel (the first in a series of eighteen) would become the basis for the 1966 Paul Newman film Harper. In the early 1950s, he returned to California, settling for some thirty years in Santa Barbara, the area where most of his books were set. The very successful Lew Archer series, including bestsellers The Goodbye Look, The Underground Man, and Sleeping Beauty, concluded with The Blue Hammer in 1976.
Macdonald died of Alzheimer's disease in Santa Barbara, California.
Macdonald is the primary heir to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler as the master of American hardboiled mysteries. His writing built on the pithy style of his predecessors by adding psychological depth and insights into the motivations of his characters. Macdonald's plots were complicated, and often turned on Archer's unearthing family secrets of his clients and of the criminals who victimized them. Lost or wayward sons and daughters were a theme common to many of the novels. Macdonald deftly combined the two sides of the mystery genre, the "whodunit" and the psychological thriller. Even his regular readers seldom saw a Macdonald denouement coming.
Millar was born in Los Gatos, California, and raised in his parents' native Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, where he started college. When his father abandoned his family unexpectedly, Macdonald lived with his mother and various relatives, moving several times by his sixteenth year. The prominence of broken homes and domestic problems in his fiction has its roots in his youth.
In Canada, he met and married Margaret Sturm (Margaret Millar)in 1938. They had a daughter, Linda, who died in 1970.
He began his career writing stories for pulp magazines. Millar attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a Phi Beta Kappa key and a Ph.D. in literature. While doing graduate study, he completed his first novel, The Dark Tunnel, in 1944. At this time, he wrote under the name John Macdonald, in order to avoid confusion with his wife, who was achieving her own success writing as Margaret Millar. He then changed briefly to John Ross Macdonald before settling on Ross Macdonald, in order to avoid mixups with contemporary John D. MacDonald. After serving at sea as a naval communications officer from 1944 to 1946, he returned to Michigan, where he obtained his Ph.D. degree.
Macdonald's popular detective Lew Archer derives his name from Sam Spade's partner, Miles Archer, and from Lew Wallace, author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Macdonald first introduced the tough but humane private eye in the 1946 short story Find the Woman. A full-length novel, The Moving Target, followed in 1949. This novel (the first in a series of eighteen) would become the basis for the 1966 Paul Newman film Harper. In the early 1950s, he returned to California, settling for some thirty years in Santa Barbara, the area where most of his books were set. The very successful Lew Archer series, including bestsellers The Goodbye Look, The Underground Man, and Sleeping Beauty, concluded with The Blue Hammer in 1976.
Macdonald died of Alzheimer's disease in Santa Barbara, California.
Macdonald is the primary heir to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler as the master of American hardboiled mysteries. His writing built on the pithy style of his predecessors by adding psychological depth and insights into the motivations of his characters. Macdonald's plots were complicated, and often turned on Archer's unearthing family secrets of his clients and of the criminals who victimized them. Lost or wayward sons and daughters were a theme common to many of the novels. Macdonald deftly combined the two sides of the mystery genre, the "whodunit" and the psychological thriller. Even his regular readers seldom saw a Macdonald denouement coming.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 172 reviews
August 26, 2019
This book is effective, in its way, with some fine behind-the-scenes glimpses of Hollywood, mobsters, and the country club crowd, and Archer is good too, making more than a few weary observations about how private detecting has changed him, and not for the better. We get our first sustained look at a sadder, wiser Archer (we have had more than a few short glimpses before), and he is frank in telling his audience--and a few other characters who will listen--how the shabbiness of the search for truth can soil a man.
Perhaps this "sustained look" at the man is the main trouble with the book. Archer journeys into the self, but it is not the same journey that the narrative must take, and, rather than complementing each other, the reflections and commentary often seem to be at odds with the plot.
The Barbarous Coast is inferior to Macdonald's earlier triumphs, such as Find a Victim, but even here we can sense that he is moving toward something richer, something that will soon lead him on to even greater achievements. The Galton Case is not far away.
October 5, 2023
"I been watching [the movie studio owner] for years . . . and I know him. I can read him like a book." -- Sammy Swift, hack screenwriter
"Who wrote the book? Freud?" -- Lew Archer, private eye
The rear cover blurb for my paperback of The Barbarous Coast - the sixth novel featuring Los Angeles P.I. Lew Archer, in a series (notably along with Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe) that helped establish the postwar archetype of the So-Cal gumshoe - states this tale is an "electrifying story of obsession gone mad". Well, not quite. Archer is pretty much simultaneously hired by two men in the opening chapters - one the husband, the other a former employer with a 'fatherly interest' (yeah, right) - to find a blonde ingenue who went missing in Malibu. It turns out she is chasing her dream of show biz stardom and, wouldn't ya know, pretty much every character with ties to her movie studio refuge is duplicitous, corrupt, or shady. (Yes, even back in the mid-1950's LA-LA land was teeming with those questionable types.). This yarn was a little too slow-moving for my tastes - at one point Archer comments that he's been on this missing-person case about two days, but I could've sworn it felt more like two weeks - and I didn't like that an essential character was not really introduced until the halfway mark because it made it feel like the previous 100 pages were a waste of reading time.
"Who wrote the book? Freud?" -- Lew Archer, private eye
The rear cover blurb for my paperback of The Barbarous Coast - the sixth novel featuring Los Angeles P.I. Lew Archer, in a series (notably along with Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe) that helped establish the postwar archetype of the So-Cal gumshoe - states this tale is an "electrifying story of obsession gone mad". Well, not quite. Archer is pretty much simultaneously hired by two men in the opening chapters - one the husband, the other a former employer with a 'fatherly interest' (yeah, right) - to find a blonde ingenue who went missing in Malibu. It turns out she is chasing her dream of show biz stardom and, wouldn't ya know, pretty much every character with ties to her movie studio refuge is duplicitous, corrupt, or shady. (Yes, even back in the mid-1950's LA-LA land was teeming with those questionable types.). This yarn was a little too slow-moving for my tastes - at one point Archer comments that he's been on this missing-person case about two days, but I could've sworn it felt more like two weeks - and I didn't like that an essential character was not really introduced until the halfway mark because it made it feel like the previous 100 pages were a waste of reading time.
October 1, 2018
The 6th Lew Archer novel starts out as another missing person case. The manager of an exclusive country club frequented by big-shot Hollywood types hires Archer to protect him from a "maniac' who claims that the manager stole his wife. The manager knows who the man's wife is but swears he has no idea of her whereabouts.
After talking to the "maniac" Archer flips a coin and goes to work to find the missing wife.
This novel has several characters you just can't wait to read run afoul of fate but mostly every other character in the book is sympathetic.
Even a murderer or two.
The following is from a passage describing Lew Archer, beaten unconscious by a trio of thugs who once worked for Anastasia, later Bugsy Siegel until he was murdered for getting greedy, lately employed by a motion picture studio as "security", ruminating on all the ways Hollywood has recreated all of us in its image.
Archer's dislike of movie people makes itself known in a parade of observations and overheard conversations:
And:
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. As much as I enjoyed the previous three entries. The feeling here is that Macdonald is on a winning streak at this point in the series. It's a solid mystery. I never saw the end coming. Had no idea which character murdered which character.
And the entire time, in almost every chapter, Archer's exhausted disgust at the way the wealthy waste what's left of their lives shoves itself to the fore.
After talking to the "maniac" Archer flips a coin and goes to work to find the missing wife.
He said with the bitter irony of age: "So you are an altruist, are you? A Hollywood culture-hero in a sports coat? ...
This novel has several characters you just can't wait to read run afoul of fate but mostly every other character in the book is sympathetic.
Even a murderer or two.
The following is from a passage describing Lew Archer, beaten unconscious by a trio of thugs who once worked for Anastasia, later Bugsy Siegel until he was murdered for getting greedy, lately employed by a motion picture studio as "security", ruminating on all the ways Hollywood has recreated all of us in its image.
I swung in black space, supported by some kind of sky hook above the bright scene... I was occupied with deep thoughts of my own. They flashed on my mind like brilliant lantern slides: Hollywood started as a meaningless dream, invented for money. But its colors ran, out through the holes in people's heads, spread across the landscape and solidified. North and south along the coast, east across the desert, across the continent. Now we were stuck with the dream without a meaning. It had become a nightmare that we lived in. Deep thoughts.
I realized with some embarrassment that the body on the deck [below] belonged to me. I climbed air down to it and crawled back in, a rat who lived inside a scarecrow.
Archer's dislike of movie people makes itself known in a parade of observations and overheard conversations:
There was a girl on my left. I caught a glimpse of her profile, young and pretty and smooth as glass. She was talking earnestly to the man beside her, an aging clown I'd seen in twenty movies.
"You said you'd catch me if I fell," she said.
"I was feeling stronger then."
"You said you'd marry me if it ever happened."
"You got more sense than to take me seriously. I'm two years behind on alimony now."
"You're very romantic, aren't you?"
"That's putting it mildly, sweetheart. I got some sense of responsibility, though. I'll do what I can for you, give you a telephone number. And you can tell him to send the bill to me."
"I don't want your dirty telephone number. I don't want your dirty money."
"Be reasonable. Think of it like it was a tumor or something -that is, if it really exists. Another drink?"
"Make mine prussic acid," she said dully.
"On the rocks?".
I left half my drink standing. It was air I needed.
And:
These were movie people, but a great deal of their talk was about television. They talked about communications media and the black list and the hook and payment for second showings and who had money for pilot films and what their agents said. Under their noise, they gave out a feeling of suspense.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. As much as I enjoyed the previous three entries. The feeling here is that Macdonald is on a winning streak at this point in the series. It's a solid mystery. I never saw the end coming. Had no idea which character murdered which character.
And the entire time, in almost every chapter, Archer's exhausted disgust at the way the wealthy waste what's left of their lives shoves itself to the fore.
The people were all inside. They had given up night walks back in the cold war. Call me trouble looking for a place to happen.
July 26, 2023
#6 in the Lew Archer series shows that Macdonald was really in the swing of things at this point. The case that Archer is hired for here is rather straightforward. This time out, The Road to Whodunit isn't maddeningly complex, with cul-de-sacs everywhere. Nevertheless, the solution to this mystery does feel like it's at the end of a verrrry long tunnel.
Maybe because there are more fist-, knife- and gunfights in this particular entry, there's a pointed suggestion of ennui on Archer's part. Occasionally Lew makes a reference to feeling lonely and in real need of a woman's intimate company. But he can also snap out of that slump mighty quick, bouncing back (as if taking cold showers) to give crisp descriptions of various lush or lurid Pacific shore settings:
Maybe because there are more fist-, knife- and gunfights in this particular entry, there's a pointed suggestion of ennui on Archer's part. Occasionally Lew makes a reference to feeling lonely and in real need of a woman's intimate company. But he can also snap out of that slump mighty quick, bouncing back (as if taking cold showers) to give crisp descriptions of various lush or lurid Pacific shore settings:
I left the house the way I had entered, and drove up into the Canyon. A few sparse stars peered between the streamers of cloud drifting along the ridge. Houselights on the slopes islanded the darkness through which the road ran white under my headlight beam. Rounding a high curve, I could see the glow of the beach cities far below to my left, phosphorescence washed up on the shore.Archer is hardly ever at a loss for pinpointing an essence:
An onion taste of grief rose at the back of my throat.And he's not above the occasional inclusion of a word you just don't hear in everyday conversation:
I sat back in the seat and watched the lights go by, flashing like thrown knives.
Her breath was a blend of gin and fermenting womanhood.
"Isobel! What kind of Walpurgisnacht is this?"What's at the root of all of the scummy behavior on parade is never all that surprising, perhaps. Nevertheless... in his storytelling, Macdonald is as tenacious as a terrier, lifting the hunt to a genuine art form.
January 23, 2020
The Barbarous Coast is not among the series' best but still a solid noir. Archer has to find a missing wife - Hester Campbell who wants to have nothing to do with her deadbeat husband. She would rather get rich real fast by blackmailing a mobbed up Hollywood producer. Blackmail is injurious to health and characters start sprouting bullet holes. The actual whodunit has been ignored by generations of noir writers in favor of atmosphere. But Macdonald is the exception, he combines sex and psychology in smart and sordid doses to reveal the answers. Latent homosexuality, repressed incestuous desires and personality disorders are always lurking in the background in Archer's cases. It blurs the line between the killer and the victim and makes the solutions a lot more memorable than the average mystery.
The Hollywood setting lets Macdonald gets some choicest digs in about the general vapidity of the people working in movies. The Hollywood guys talk about money reverentially like a priest revealing a mystery. Even when Archer is complemented his distaste shows. The trouble with flattery is that people expected to be paid for it in kind. But in spite of some sharp lines the writing was better in previous entries. Compare it to Chandler's The Little Sister (also set in Hollywood) and the gulf in prose is considerable.
There are three separate places where Archer is at the mercy of multiple gunmen. He survives in ways befitting braindead action movies not gritty hard boiled mysteries. Archer gets the shit kicked out of him numerous times without any apparent discomfort. Five-six consecutive chapters in the middle of the book are set in the same place (the Channel Club) which drags. It sticks out like a sore thumb as Macdonald always changes the setting between chapter breaks, just an organic way to keep things moving. One of the author's strength is memorable cameo characters which pop up for a chapter or two. They are also lacking here. Minor issues but together they drag the book down compared to some of the better entries in the series.
Macdonald's name is often used in the same sentence with Chandler and Hammett but the biggest difference between them and him is consistency. The other two combined wrote about 11 full length novels, this is Macdonald's eleventh novel and according to popular wisdom I am yet to reach his finest works. Hence Macdonald remains a bit uneven. The series was operating on a different plane in entries #3 and #4 but has regressed since then. My ratings has not always reflected that as GR does not allow a scale of 10. I have usually bumped up 3.5 to 4 for Macdonald for the flashes of brilliant prose and strong endings but this time I will balance things out. 3.5 gets reduced to 3. Rating - 3/5
The Hollywood setting lets Macdonald gets some choicest digs in about the general vapidity of the people working in movies. The Hollywood guys talk about money reverentially like a priest revealing a mystery. Even when Archer is complemented his distaste shows. The trouble with flattery is that people expected to be paid for it in kind. But in spite of some sharp lines the writing was better in previous entries. Compare it to Chandler's The Little Sister (also set in Hollywood) and the gulf in prose is considerable.
There are three separate places where Archer is at the mercy of multiple gunmen. He survives in ways befitting braindead action movies not gritty hard boiled mysteries. Archer gets the shit kicked out of him numerous times without any apparent discomfort. Five-six consecutive chapters in the middle of the book are set in the same place (the Channel Club) which drags. It sticks out like a sore thumb as Macdonald always changes the setting between chapter breaks, just an organic way to keep things moving. One of the author's strength is memorable cameo characters which pop up for a chapter or two. They are also lacking here. Minor issues but together they drag the book down compared to some of the better entries in the series.
Macdonald's name is often used in the same sentence with Chandler and Hammett but the biggest difference between them and him is consistency. The other two combined wrote about 11 full length novels, this is Macdonald's eleventh novel and according to popular wisdom I am yet to reach his finest works. Hence Macdonald remains a bit uneven. The series was operating on a different plane in entries #3 and #4 but has regressed since then. My ratings has not always reflected that as GR does not allow a scale of 10. I have usually bumped up 3.5 to 4 for Macdonald for the flashes of brilliant prose and strong endings but this time I will balance things out. 3.5 gets reduced to 3. Rating - 3/5
December 21, 2019
Over the decades, I've read many of the Private Investigator Lew Archer mysteries. I like the hardboiled tone, lush California setting, and snappy dialogue. This title didn't disappoint me. Lew is as world-weary as ever, but he's a good-hearted guy with a dry sense of humor and sense of fair play and justice. He does things I don't understand. But then I'll never be a detective. I don't know what I'll do after I read them all. They'll be fun to return to down the road, I'm sure.
April 11, 2022
3.5* Not my favourite Archer novel. I found it laboured and without the same human insight as other novels, apart from that all men are corrupt at heart and women are helpless and need rescuing.
May 15, 2011
After the modest disappointment of Find a Victim this one's a great comeback. Because it's got a great pun of a title. And it's a Hollywood novel. Granted, the Hollywood Babylon of the early fifties could be a Disney ride by Ellroy standards, but you can still appreciate the sleaze and the cheese, however mild by our odiferous standards. You also get the requisite wacky characters: the effete club manager, the punchdrunk boxer, the jealous husband, and deranged dames galore. But most of all you get an Archer who seems to be wrestling with the darkness of it all for the first time. There's a scene in here where he sits at home in his stucco cottage wondering if he oughta get into a brighter line of work. And, holy dirty slurs, somebody calls somebody else a "fag"? The ugly is real in this one. Ooh, and for metafictionalists, there's the highly enjoyable rumor that the twee club manager (Clarence) is a not-so-veiled poke at Raymond Chandler, with his pippy pipe and faux-British affectations.
Of course, you have your requisite smart remarks and plot twists, all of which seem pretty contrived if you think about it too hard, but this ain't To the Lighthouse or The Secret Life of Bees, so let's not think about it too hard. You have a couple of dead chicks, a lot of hairy-chested glam boys, some mobstahs. All u need.
The best part: The girl at the center of the mystery is named Hester. As in Hester Prynne. It's the second-best allusion in Macdonald so far after Edmund Spenser gets a shout out with a babe named Una in The Ivory Grin.
I seriously hope somewhere down the Archer line we have a femme fatale named Scout. That would be awesome...
Of course, you have your requisite smart remarks and plot twists, all of which seem pretty contrived if you think about it too hard, but this ain't To the Lighthouse or The Secret Life of Bees, so let's not think about it too hard. You have a couple of dead chicks, a lot of hairy-chested glam boys, some mobstahs. All u need.
The best part: The girl at the center of the mystery is named Hester. As in Hester Prynne. It's the second-best allusion in Macdonald so far after Edmund Spenser gets a shout out with a babe named Una in The Ivory Grin.
I seriously hope somewhere down the Archer line we have a femme fatale named Scout. That would be awesome...
May 2, 2020
Ένατο βιβλίο του Ρος Μακντόναλντ που διαβάζω, όγδοο με πρωταγωνιστή τον φοβερό Λιου Άρτσερ, που ίσως θα ήταν ο αγαπημένος μου Αμερικανός ιδιωτικός ντετέκτιβ, αν δεν υπήρχε ο ακόμα πιο φοβερός Φίλιπ Μάρλοου. Τελευταία φορά που διάβασα ιστορία με ήρωα τον Λιου Άρτσερ ήταν τον Μάιο του 2018, και σίγουρα μου έλειψε πολύ. Αλλά όπως έχω ξαναγράψει, τα μεταφρασμένα βιβλία του Μακντόναλντ που έχω στα αδιάβαστα είναι πλέον πάρα πολύ λίγα και δεν θέλω να ξεμείνω τόσο σύντομα. Τέλος πάντων, το "Αναστάτωση στο Τσάνελ Κλαμπ" είναι ένα ακόμα ψυχαγωγικό και ενδιαφέρον αστυνομικό νουάρ, με όλες τις απαραίτητες δόσεις μυστηρίου, αγωνίας και δράσης που μας έχει συνηθίσει ο συγγραφέας. Το μενού διαθέτει σε σχετική αφθονία μυστικά (οικογενειακά και μη), προδοσίες, πάθη, φόνους και κάθε είδους μπερδέματα, με τον Λιου Άρτσερ να μπαίνει κάπως ανυποψίαστος στην αρχή και να προσπαθεί να βγάλει μια άκρη με όλα αυτά που συμβαίνουν, κινδυνεύοντας συχνά να φάει το κεφάλι του (σίγουρα έφαγε λίγο ξύλο παραπάνω από το... ενδεδειγμένο). Η γραφή είναι κλασικά πολύ ωραία, οξυδερκής και ευκολοδιάβαστη, με γλαφυρές περιγραφές και εξαιρετικά φυσικούς διαλόγους, ενώ η ατμόσφαιρα δεν θα μπορούσε παρά να είναι αρκετά αγωνιώδης και με νουάρ αποχρώσεις. Χωρίς αμφιβολία, τα βιβλία του Ρος Μακντόναλντ αποτελούν εγγύηση ποιότητας και αναγνωστικής απόλαυσης, είναι σίγουρα από τα καλύτερα δείγματα της νουάρ λογοτεχνίας.
March 2, 2023
The Dying Animal
Ross Macdonald's novels featuring private detective Lew Archer have become classics of crime fiction. They are psychological works which explore the greed, unhappiness, and violence just below the surfaces of what appear to be placid, successful lives. Macdonald's "The Barbarous Coast" (1956) is a relatively early work, the sixth in what became seventeen Lew Archer novels, and it is the second included in the Library of America's anthology of four Archer crime novels from the 1950s. The LOA has published a three-volume anthology of eleven novels in Archer's inimitable voice. Macdonald had originally titled the work "The Dying Animal", a title later used in a far different 2010 novel by the late Philip Roth.
The LOA's introduction to the 1950s compilation states that "The Barbarous Coast" "exposes a world of hidden crime and corruption in the movie business, as Archer intrudes on the well-protected secrets of a studio head." It describes the work as a "gripping and tightly knit drama of madness and self-destruction." The description is accurate as far as it goes. There is much to like in the novel as well as a great deal that is ineffective.
The novel is set in an exclusive private club in Malibu, California, near the beauties of the ocean with scenes in Hollywood and Las Vegas. The novel drew me in at the outset as Archer describes how he is called in to find the missing, estranged wife of a young Canadian sports reporter. She had earlier worked at the club as a diver and diving instructor. (The unusual emphasis on diving in this book reminded me of a later and probably more effective crime novel that features a down- on- his- luck high diver: "Tishomingo Blues" by Elmore Leonard.) The assignment proves only part of a long difficult corruption-ridden situation which will lead to at least five brutal killings before it is resolved.
The novel features Hollywood producers and gangsters with Las Vegas ties together with thugs and would be actors and actresses among many other characters. The story includes elements of murder, blackmail, corruption, deceit, professional boxing, and lost, frustrated love. The depictions of places and people in Archer's sharp-eyed observation together with Archer's devotion to doing what is right in circumstances fraught with evil bring the novel to life. The novel also includes many detailed scenes of fighting and violence.
The problem with the book lies in its convoluted plot which essentially is unraveled at the end but which makes for confusing reading. The novel is much better in parts and in its writing and descriptions than in its tangled story. In addition, elements of the story are formulaic and shopworn with elements such as the tie between Hollywood and Las Vegas, the dark secrets of exclusive beach clubs, and the perils of apparently lost, abused beautiful women at risk from violent criminals that Macdonald had already used before and would use again in subsequent Archer novels.
This novel has a place in the lengthy series of Lew Archer stories, but each book should be considered on its own. The plotting of "The Barbarous Coast" makes the book a lesser effort. While it has its virtues, I don't think that standing alone the book would have merited a place in the Library of America series.
Robin Friedman
Ross Macdonald's novels featuring private detective Lew Archer have become classics of crime fiction. They are psychological works which explore the greed, unhappiness, and violence just below the surfaces of what appear to be placid, successful lives. Macdonald's "The Barbarous Coast" (1956) is a relatively early work, the sixth in what became seventeen Lew Archer novels, and it is the second included in the Library of America's anthology of four Archer crime novels from the 1950s. The LOA has published a three-volume anthology of eleven novels in Archer's inimitable voice. Macdonald had originally titled the work "The Dying Animal", a title later used in a far different 2010 novel by the late Philip Roth.
The LOA's introduction to the 1950s compilation states that "The Barbarous Coast" "exposes a world of hidden crime and corruption in the movie business, as Archer intrudes on the well-protected secrets of a studio head." It describes the work as a "gripping and tightly knit drama of madness and self-destruction." The description is accurate as far as it goes. There is much to like in the novel as well as a great deal that is ineffective.
The novel is set in an exclusive private club in Malibu, California, near the beauties of the ocean with scenes in Hollywood and Las Vegas. The novel drew me in at the outset as Archer describes how he is called in to find the missing, estranged wife of a young Canadian sports reporter. She had earlier worked at the club as a diver and diving instructor. (The unusual emphasis on diving in this book reminded me of a later and probably more effective crime novel that features a down- on- his- luck high diver: "Tishomingo Blues" by Elmore Leonard.) The assignment proves only part of a long difficult corruption-ridden situation which will lead to at least five brutal killings before it is resolved.
The novel features Hollywood producers and gangsters with Las Vegas ties together with thugs and would be actors and actresses among many other characters. The story includes elements of murder, blackmail, corruption, deceit, professional boxing, and lost, frustrated love. The depictions of places and people in Archer's sharp-eyed observation together with Archer's devotion to doing what is right in circumstances fraught with evil bring the novel to life. The novel also includes many detailed scenes of fighting and violence.
The problem with the book lies in its convoluted plot which essentially is unraveled at the end but which makes for confusing reading. The novel is much better in parts and in its writing and descriptions than in its tangled story. In addition, elements of the story are formulaic and shopworn with elements such as the tie between Hollywood and Las Vegas, the dark secrets of exclusive beach clubs, and the perils of apparently lost, abused beautiful women at risk from violent criminals that Macdonald had already used before and would use again in subsequent Archer novels.
This novel has a place in the lengthy series of Lew Archer stories, but each book should be considered on its own. The plotting of "The Barbarous Coast" makes the book a lesser effort. While it has its virtues, I don't think that standing alone the book would have merited a place in the Library of America series.
Robin Friedman
February 28, 2015
The Barbarous Coast is a hipster Hollywood sleaze mystery classic that has to be read to be believed: Ross McDonald tells a story of boxers and pool tramps bought and sold by Hollywood studios while movie studio dicks enforce damage control over their pilled-out and drunken stars while gangsters hustle men for sexual favors and rich wives foam at the mouth from Demerol seizures.
Corpses are torched and drunken matron motel managers are packing heat aching for a man to unload it on and stately sanatorium wives sew dildos on teddy bears. Everybody wants to be a star in Hollywood but nobody wants to stick around for the final act. Nobody but Lew Archer. And it was published in 1956.
Corpses are torched and drunken matron motel managers are packing heat aching for a man to unload it on and stately sanatorium wives sew dildos on teddy bears. Everybody wants to be a star in Hollywood but nobody wants to stick around for the final act. Nobody but Lew Archer. And it was published in 1956.
May 12, 2023
02/2022
From 1956
Most of the characters, except Archer and the ex fighter with the murdered daughter, are bad. Even the fairly innocent George Wall does a lot of beating, driven to evil by exposure to this evil world. The dead daughter, killed before the book starts, was maybe nice, but she was sleeping with a married rich man, so in the logic of fairy tales and horror movies, she sinned and deserved death. The evil corruptness of Hollywood is here, and the barbarous coast refers to the Los Angeles adjacent Malibu, so that makes sense.
From 1956
Most of the characters, except Archer and the ex fighter with the murdered daughter, are bad. Even the fairly innocent George Wall does a lot of beating, driven to evil by exposure to this evil world. The dead daughter, killed before the book starts, was maybe nice, but she was sleeping with a married rich man, so in the logic of fairy tales and horror movies, she sinned and deserved death. The evil corruptness of Hollywood is here, and the barbarous coast refers to the Los Angeles adjacent Malibu, so that makes sense.
October 5, 2025
Clarence Bassett, the manager of an exclusive Malibu country club, has a problem. To solve it he hires private detective Lew Archer, who is initially asked to drive off a young man named George Wall before being tasked instead to search for Wall’s wife, Hester. Archer soon finds himself enmeshed in a web of stories told by Hester, which draw Archer to an unsolved murder involving a friend of Hester’s, a young ex-boxer turned aspiring actor, and a movie mogul in a partnership with a mob boss. Obstructed by secrets and opposed by thugs, Archer untangles in the hope of saving the lives of those enmeshed—including his own.
Ross Macdonald’s sixth Lew Archer novel reflects all of the strengths of the series. Within its well-plotted story, he spins a tragic tale of ambition, desire, greed, and frustration under the Southern California sun. The multilayered nature of the plot takes a little longer to come together than do some of the previous books in the series, reflecting Macdonald’s willingness to tinker with his formula in order to keep things fresh and different. It makes for a work that fans of detective noir will enjoy as an excellent example of the form by a true master of his craft.
Ross Macdonald’s sixth Lew Archer novel reflects all of the strengths of the series. Within its well-plotted story, he spins a tragic tale of ambition, desire, greed, and frustration under the Southern California sun. The multilayered nature of the plot takes a little longer to come together than do some of the previous books in the series, reflecting Macdonald’s willingness to tinker with his formula in order to keep things fresh and different. It makes for a work that fans of detective noir will enjoy as an excellent example of the form by a true master of his craft.
October 6, 2011
He's so fine, right up there with Cain and Hammett and Chandler.
And he says stuff like this:
“Hollywood started as a meaningless dream, invented for money. But its colors ran, out through the holes in people’s heads, spread across the landscape and solidified. North and south along the coast, east across the desert, across the continent. Now we were stuck with the dream without a meaning. It has become the nightmare that we lived in.”
And he says stuff like this:
“Hollywood started as a meaningless dream, invented for money. But its colors ran, out through the holes in people’s heads, spread across the landscape and solidified. North and south along the coast, east across the desert, across the continent. Now we were stuck with the dream without a meaning. It has become the nightmare that we lived in.”
May 28, 2022
”The Barbarous Coast” has a reputation for being one of the worse among Ross Macdonald's novels about the exceptionally philosophical private eye Lew Archer, and I can see why people think that even though I still ended up enjoying it.
It's basically a ”Horrible Hollywood” novel, a standard noir theme that Macdonald touched on a bit in ”The Moving Target” but otherwise avoided in favour of ”small town with a dark secret” territory in the other novels of his I've read. (the later I've yet to read) This also has a more fast paced plot with more action scenes than usual, with the possible exception of ”Find a Victim”. Overall ”The Barbarous Coast” feels more cartoonish than the other Lew Archer novels I've read, also having more eccentric supporting characters in particular an overtly talkative lifeguard. The action scenes are among the best I've read in any of Macdonald's novels. Near the end there is the obligatory gambit pile-up of side-characters double-crossing each other and murdering everyone else, which again feels a bit less realistic and more hysterical than how Macdonald typically handled this.
Put it bluntly: ”The Barbarous Coast” reads more like a stereotypical hardboiled detective novel than the others I've read from the same author, in other words. Right down to the opening having a bunch of clear homages to Raymond Chandler's early short stories compiled in ”Trouble Is My Business”. Anyway, this might be less serious than the author's standard but I still found it extremely entertaining and a good novel to read on long train journeys.
Oh, and the version I own gives a summary on the back that's significantly different from the actual plot told in the book. What's up with that?
It's basically a ”Horrible Hollywood” novel, a standard noir theme that Macdonald touched on a bit in ”The Moving Target” but otherwise avoided in favour of ”small town with a dark secret” territory in the other novels of his I've read. (the later I've yet to read) This also has a more fast paced plot with more action scenes than usual, with the possible exception of ”Find a Victim”. Overall ”The Barbarous Coast” feels more cartoonish than the other Lew Archer novels I've read, also having more eccentric supporting characters in particular an overtly talkative lifeguard. The action scenes are among the best I've read in any of Macdonald's novels. Near the end there is the obligatory gambit pile-up of side-characters double-crossing each other and murdering everyone else, which again feels a bit less realistic and more hysterical than how Macdonald typically handled this.
Put it bluntly: ”The Barbarous Coast” reads more like a stereotypical hardboiled detective novel than the others I've read from the same author, in other words. Right down to the opening having a bunch of clear homages to Raymond Chandler's early short stories compiled in ”Trouble Is My Business”. Anyway, this might be less serious than the author's standard but I still found it extremely entertaining and a good novel to read on long train journeys.
Oh, and the version I own gives a summary on the back that's significantly different from the actual plot told in the book. What's up with that?
October 3, 2017
I recently read this author's "The Way Some People Die" and thought the writing and plot very good. I found "The Barbarous Coast" of lesser quality: it seemed to me the plot was, well, all over the place with too many characters popping in and out of the story, some of them even feeling unnecessary to the central story, as if MacDonald was trying to stretch this one out. What's wrong with a novella? Anyway, as hard as I tried to figure this one out, there were some surprises along the way and I thought the ending perfect. And the way MacDonald paints the dark side of Hollywood feels just right: so many dreams have sadly ended much too early, as they do in "The Barbarous Coast", a title perfect for the contents. I'll definitely read more of Ross MacDonald.
September 21, 2018
Ross Macdonald's The Barbarous Coast (1956) is an early Lew Archer mystery that takes on the moneyed classes of Southern California with a shillelagh. It all starts out when Archer reluctantly takes on a missing person case, in which a headstrong Canadian begs for help finding his lovely blonde wife who had come to Hollywood to become -- what else? -- a star.
The action starts at a Malibu Beach Club for the super wealthy and makes stops at a Hollywood film studio called Helio-Graff and Las Vegas. Eventually, the missing Heather Campbell is found, and a number of other bodies, mostly of thugs, pop up like weeds all over the place.
I am beginning to like the Lew Archer stories and plan to continue reading the series.
The action starts at a Malibu Beach Club for the super wealthy and makes stops at a Hollywood film studio called Helio-Graff and Las Vegas. Eventually, the missing Heather Campbell is found, and a number of other bodies, mostly of thugs, pop up like weeds all over the place.
I am beginning to like the Lew Archer stories and plan to continue reading the series.
June 24, 2019
Book #6 in the Lew Archer series is The Barbarous Coast (1956), a compelling and intricate mystery featuring many of the elements I’ve come to know and love in Macdonald’s novels. More specifically: twisted, dysfunctional families with dark secrets to hide; damaged individuals with complex, psychological issues; elements of desire, murder and betrayal, all set within the privileged social circle of 1950s LA.
To read my review, please click here:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2019...
To read my review, please click here:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2019...
February 15, 2015
Enjoyed this like all his others, though not as good as The Chill...he does use the word Neutraesque in here though, and I particularly liked this:
Mrs Campbell lived on a poor street of stucco and frame cottages half hidden by large, ancient oak trees. In their sun-flecked shadows, pre-school children played their killing games: Bang Bang, you're dead; I'm not dead; you are so dead.
September 14, 2018
Grover Gardner is so great narrating as Lew Archer. And Ross MacDonald is a worthy successor to Raymond Chandler in the Los Angeles P.I. hard boiled genre!
And the actual 'cover' of this digital audiobook looks like this:
And the actual 'cover' of this digital audiobook looks like this:
July 22, 2024
In the sixth volume in MacDonald's Lew Archer series, published in 1956, MacDonald takes on a tour of the corruption of Hollywood and how one cover-up leads to another. it all starts with an odd request from one Mr. Bassett, the manager of an exclusive Malibu swim and drink club, who wants Archer to do something about a man (George Wall) who has been harassing Bassett for the whereabouts of his missing wife, diver and actress Hester Campbell, who has not been around for months, but who Bassett always thought of in a fatherly way. Of course, Archer finds it odd, when shown a photograph of Hester, that the girl in the photograph with her was murdered two years earlier, Gabrielle Torres. Wall was a bit young and reckless, dangerous to himself and other people, but Archer figures if he lets Wall tag along when he tries to find Hester that he can keep Wall out of trouble. What Archer does not figure is how much trouble finding Hester would turn out to be or how much danger it would put him in.
Archer offers his philosophy at some points, telling us that the problem is to love people and try to serve them without wanting anything from them and that he was a long way from solving that one. He is asked at one point whether he is a good man and replies that he would like to think so, then reconsiders and says he is not, that he keeps trying, "but it keeps getting tougher every year. Like trying to chin yourself with one hand. You can practice off and on all your life, and never make it." This is a bit of insight into the Archer character. He is struggling often to do the right thing, but the more he delves into cases and the more he learns about the dark sides of human nature, the harder it is for him to feel that what he accomplishes is for the best.
When offered a huge payoff late in the story, Archer admits he wants it very badly, but could not take it. "It wouldn't belong to me, I would belong to it. It would expect me to do things, and I would have to do them." So is it ultimately for Archer about being a good man or being a free man, unencumbered by promises or debts? This distinguishes Archer from most he might find in Hollywood where eloquence lacks conviction, where one can live too long among actors and ultimately, we are told, become a citizen of an unreal city.
Archer offers his philosophy at some points, telling us that the problem is to love people and try to serve them without wanting anything from them and that he was a long way from solving that one. He is asked at one point whether he is a good man and replies that he would like to think so, then reconsiders and says he is not, that he keeps trying, "but it keeps getting tougher every year. Like trying to chin yourself with one hand. You can practice off and on all your life, and never make it." This is a bit of insight into the Archer character. He is struggling often to do the right thing, but the more he delves into cases and the more he learns about the dark sides of human nature, the harder it is for him to feel that what he accomplishes is for the best.
When offered a huge payoff late in the story, Archer admits he wants it very badly, but could not take it. "It wouldn't belong to me, I would belong to it. It would expect me to do things, and I would have to do them." So is it ultimately for Archer about being a good man or being a free man, unencumbered by promises or debts? This distinguishes Archer from most he might find in Hollywood where eloquence lacks conviction, where one can live too long among actors and ultimately, we are told, become a citizen of an unreal city.
March 16, 2023
DAMN, I like a good noir. And this might be one of my two favourite ones by Macdonald. It helped me realize why exactly I like his stories so much. In many, many mystery/crime novels there is a riddle that has to be solved but it's relatively static, unchanging after the detective appears on the scene, maybe save for some obligatory killing off the suspects. In Ross Macdonald's books you can clearly see that even when the protagonist (with a first person narrator, of course) is dealing with a particular character or matter, there are things happening off-screen, villains and witnesses and others taking action. The situation is constantly changing, dynamic which makes it much more interesting when it comes to solving the mystery.
And speaking of mysteries, this time it was a good one. I think it has been one of the most convoluted plots I've encountered in a noir story, but it was good-convoluted with plenty of red-herrings, plenty of moments where the riddle seemed solved only to turn out to be anything but. I enjoyed each revelation - especially as in hindsight the story made sense - as well as the competing characters and interests and, of course, the resolution.
And speaking of mysteries, this time it was a good one. I think it has been one of the most convoluted plots I've encountered in a noir story, but it was good-convoluted with plenty of red-herrings, plenty of moments where the riddle seemed solved only to turn out to be anything but. I enjoyed each revelation - especially as in hindsight the story made sense - as well as the competing characters and interests and, of course, the resolution.
August 2, 2019
This book sneaked up on me like an Archer nemesis with a sap. But rather than be knocked cold, I was knocked alert (that's not too clever), but you get the point. The book starts a tad slow, picks up after a few chapters, then speeds to a great end. It's dark, surprising, sad at times, and gritty all the time. If you like Ross MacDonald, this will hit you in the sweet spot. If you haven't read him yet, here's not a bad place to start.
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September 30, 2018The uniformly strong nature of the Lew Archer novels make it kind of pointless to write much about any specific one. Here you’ve got what you’ve usually got – very strong writing, a powerful moral viewpoint, some clever character work, and one too many twists.
October 5, 2013
Another great Lew Archer detective story from Ross Macdonald. It starts simple. It always does. A girl is missing and Archer sets out to find her. But things never stay simple in a Macdonald mystery. The trial leads to adultery, insanity, greed, and murder. Quite a bit of murder actually. I think this may have the highest body count of any Archer mystery I've read yet.
i am obsessed with the character Lew Archer. The little snippets we get from his life are so tragic and bittersweet. i really enjoy how he navigates the classism, sexism, and racism so deftly and often, hilariously. This is honestly one of the most consistently satisfying book series I have ever read.
Great quotes:
He was a natural-born troublemaker, dangerous to himself and probably to other people. Perhaps if I tagged along with him, I could head off the trouble he was looking for. I was a dreamer.
Lew? How's the Sherlock kick?
It keeps me in beer and skittles. By the way, what are skittles? You're a writer, you're supposed to know these things.
Trouble is what the word detective means to me.
Hollywood started as a meaningless dream, invented for money. But its colors ran, out through the holes in people's heads, spread across the landscape and solidified. North and south along the coast, east across the desert, across the continent. Now we were stuck with the dream without a meaning. It had become the nightmare that we lived in.
She covered her streaked face with her hands and flung herself sideways on the bed. Fear ran through her, silent and rigorous as an electric current, shaking her entire body. Something that felt like pity rose from the center of mine. The trouble with pity was that it always changed to something else - repulsion or desire.
Jerkiness isn't as respectable as it used to be, not even in L.A. Which is why they had to build Vegas.
i am obsessed with the character Lew Archer. The little snippets we get from his life are so tragic and bittersweet. i really enjoy how he navigates the classism, sexism, and racism so deftly and often, hilariously. This is honestly one of the most consistently satisfying book series I have ever read.
Great quotes:
He was a natural-born troublemaker, dangerous to himself and probably to other people. Perhaps if I tagged along with him, I could head off the trouble he was looking for. I was a dreamer.
Lew? How's the Sherlock kick?
It keeps me in beer and skittles. By the way, what are skittles? You're a writer, you're supposed to know these things.
Trouble is what the word detective means to me.
Hollywood started as a meaningless dream, invented for money. But its colors ran, out through the holes in people's heads, spread across the landscape and solidified. North and south along the coast, east across the desert, across the continent. Now we were stuck with the dream without a meaning. It had become the nightmare that we lived in.
She covered her streaked face with her hands and flung herself sideways on the bed. Fear ran through her, silent and rigorous as an electric current, shaking her entire body. Something that felt like pity rose from the center of mine. The trouble with pity was that it always changed to something else - repulsion or desire.
Jerkiness isn't as respectable as it used to be, not even in L.A. Which is why they had to build Vegas.
May 12, 2017
This comparatively early Archer novel feels almost carefree and easy-going compared to what was to follow. Given that the last Archer novel I read was ‘The Wycherly Woman’, a book I found more than somewhat dispiriting in its depiction of damaged people doing damaging things to each other, this was something of a relief. Yes, it’s an undoubtedly an Archer novel, as psychology and family intrigues play big roles here, but although there’s murder and blackmail, it knows it’s a detective story (and actually more than once references the way people behave in detective stories, in a lovely post-modernist touch) rather than a play by Chekov.
It helps that Archer here falls right into my particular sweet spot: detective stories/thrillers about old Hollywood. I’m not sure that there’s another Archer this focused on the movie business (if there is, I don’t recall reading it), but we have here studio heads, screenwriters, would be Latin lotharios of the silver screen and scheming starlets. There’s even a chase on a studio lot.
Archer is hired by the owner of an elite club to first protect him from a jealous husband, then to find the jealous husband’s missing wife. Those who’ve already read MacDonald will know the drill – there’s mistaken identity, crimes from the past being awoken in the present, and some gorgeous prose layered on top of twists and turns and murder after murder.
If you get chance, please visit my blog at frjameson.com
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Or follow me on Twitter or Instagram: @frjameson.
It helps that Archer here falls right into my particular sweet spot: detective stories/thrillers about old Hollywood. I’m not sure that there’s another Archer this focused on the movie business (if there is, I don’t recall reading it), but we have here studio heads, screenwriters, would be Latin lotharios of the silver screen and scheming starlets. There’s even a chase on a studio lot.
Archer is hired by the owner of an elite club to first protect him from a jealous husband, then to find the jealous husband’s missing wife. Those who’ve already read MacDonald will know the drill – there’s mistaken identity, crimes from the past being awoken in the present, and some gorgeous prose layered on top of twists and turns and murder after murder.
If you get chance, please visit my blog at frjameson.com
LIke my Facebook page
Or follow me on Twitter or Instagram: @frjameson.
May 10, 2017
2. 5 stars. A middle-of-the-road novel, The Barbarous Coast is the 6th Lew Archer book; it belongs more with the earlier work than the later. The set-up is familiar: a simple request to protect one man from another man turns into a hideously complex story, replete with blackmail, counter-blackmail, gangsters, false business fronts, a schizophrenic woman, several murders, and what seemed like dozens of false leads. The Chandler influence is evident in the plotting, since almost every chapter concerned one person butting into another person's room, while Macdonald's much-praised literary style becomes monotonous at times; one's eyes start to glaze at the prospect of yet another metaphor or moody description of the sea. The last chapter is pure melodrama, as one character recounts what really happened that far off night...
Also, it strained my credibility that Lew Archer was still standing up at the end of the story, since by that point not only had he had been severely beaten multiple times, sustaining major head wounds, but he had forgone all rest for a period of several days. All, of course, for $50 a day.
Not one of Macdonald's best.
Also, it strained my credibility that Lew Archer was still standing up at the end of the story, since by that point not only had he had been severely beaten multiple times, sustaining major head wounds, but he had forgone all rest for a period of several days. All, of course, for $50 a day.
Not one of Macdonald's best.
May 5, 2015
The last of the early phase of the Lew Archer series, Macdonald's The Barbarous Coast is a solid, but not an essential entry. It's still an Archer book, which means it is beautifully written and plotted, but it simply does not compare to what came after (still some of the finest detective novels ever written). Also, after solid early entries like The Way Some People Die or The Ivory Grin, this book feels overstuffed despite its relatively short length: Macdonald throws a whole Chandler-esq milieu of starlets, movie studio executives, gangsters, washed-up boxers, and miscellaneous oddballs at the reader, but too much labyrinthine plotting is occurring to leave time for the pitch-perfect characterization we expect from an Archer book. Additionally, the Mickey Spillane style violence feels out of place for an Archer novel. However, Macdonald would do a near 180 and begin to hit his stride in the series' next entry, The Doomsters, maybe my favorite Archer book to date.
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June 2, 2009A few years ago I won the Edgar Award for mystery writing. If there was one author that brought me to that it was Ross Macdonald. This book was the one that clicked for me, though I read all of the Lew Archer series, many times over. This was the book that I was reading during a snowstorm somewhere in Ohio on the way to grad school at IU, where a few months later I invented my own fictional detective. Macdonald's evocation of California and post-war angst opened my eyes to my own potential as a fiction writer. He made mystery writing cerebral, artful. To him, it was a serious vocation. If only there were more like him writing today.
April 7, 2017
Set in 1956 America, the tone and style of Ross Macdonald murder mysteries featuring the detective Lew Archur is similar to a Raymond Chandler novel. I hadn't read a Ross Macdonald for many years, and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. He creates a panoply of varied, credible and convincing characters. The book is both extremely readable and well-written. His command of English is superb. An example: "...Miss Seeley came in.... She was a little older, a little thinner. Her tailored pinstriped suit emphasized the boniness of her figure. But she still wore hopeful white ruffles at her wrists and throat." The plot is exciting and the conclusion is satisfying.
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