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Lew Archer #0.3
The Name Is Archer
MYSTERY
Includes the following stories:
Includes the following stories:
Find the woman
Gone girl
The bearded lady
The suicide
Guilt-edged blonde
The sinister habit
Wild goose chase
Midnight blue
Sleeping dog
288 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1955
16 people are currently reading
3012 people want to read
About the author
Ross Macdonald
168 books822 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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July 30, 2025
TRAGIC VIBRATIONS
Lew Archer nella sua versione cinematografica diventa Lew Harper e lo interpreta due volte (1966 e 1975) Paul Newman.
Quando mi capitò di scoprire Kenneth Millar, alla prima lettura di un’avventura del suo detective privato preferito Lew Archer, mi sono detto che se dopo Hammett, e ancor più dopo Chandler (da me nettamente preferito al primo), il genere mistery crime, nella sua coniugazione hard boiled, aveva ancora qualcosa da regalarmi di così alto e appassionante livello, il mondo doveva per forza essere un gran bel posto.
Un po’ di anni dopo, non pochi, penso che Kenneth Millar sia uno scrittore portentoso nel suo genere, mail mondo non si è rivelato quel gran bel posto che m’ero illuso dovesse essere.
E per certi versi questo artista del mistery crime supera i due maestri capostipiti del genere perché scalda le sue storie (qui ci sono sette racconti) con una nuova sensibilità basata su una buona conoscenza di Freud e della psicologia, e con la consapevolezza dell’umano soffrire.
Kenneth Millar non ha mai nascosto la sua appartenenza alla scuola hard boiled inaugurata venti/trenta anni prima dai suoi predecessori Hammett e Chandler: il suo eroe Archer prende il nome da Miles Archer, il collega di Sam Spade, la creatura hammettiana, che viene assassinato in Il falcone maltese.
L’Archer di Kenneth Millar era un osso duro di poche parole che poteva competere in dialoghi serrati basate su frecciate, battute, freddure (wisecrack) con “bulli e pupe”, anche se i bulli erano gangster, e anche se le pupe parlavano con un Martini accent profumando di chlorine and sex, mentre portava giustizia nei recessi più oscuri della sunny California.
Tra i suoi leitmotiv: ricchi indolenti con prole inetta e capricciosa – una colpa commessa nel passato che torna ad affacciarsi nel presente gettando ombra pericolosa anche sulla prole del responsabile (e qui si apre il discorso di quanto abbia fatto ricorso ai miti classici, con la mediazione della psicanalisi) – matrimoni sbagliati con contorno di proprietà trafugate – identità multiple, e cioè personaggi che vengono scambiati per altri, con la confusione che ne consegue (fratello e sorella sono invece amanti, madre e figlio sono invece sposati…)
Le sue trame si tengono lontane dagli intrecci pazzeschi a prova di comprensione di Hammett e Chandler: Kenneth Millar vuole invece che il lettore capisca oltre il chi e il come, soprattutto il perché.
Come dicevo, rispetto a Marlowe e Spade, Archer ha un altro spessore e un’altra profondità di personaggio, che secondo me lo rende più umano e più credibile: sotto la scorza dura, il suo gusto per donne e alcolici, è un uomo che conosce il dolore, conosce empatia e compassione. Arriva a dichiararlo esplicitamente, I have a secret passion for mercy, magari nascondendo la pietà in un ghigno amaro. Se gli offrono una mazzetta, gli propongono di farsi comprare, risponde che non potrebbe neppure permettersi di pagare le tasse su una cifra del genere, e però subito dopo la freddura, aggiunge: It wouldn't belong to me, I would belong to it.
Dimenticavo di dire che Kenneth Millar lasciò il suo vero cognome alla moglie e collega scrittrice Margaret Sturm, che si firmava appunto Margaret Millar, e adottò il nome d’arte di Ross Macdonald.
Kenneth Millar e Ross Macdonald.
Lew Archer nella sua versione cinematografica diventa Lew Harper e lo interpreta due volte (1966 e 1975) Paul Newman.
Quando mi capitò di scoprire Kenneth Millar, alla prima lettura di un’avventura del suo detective privato preferito Lew Archer, mi sono detto che se dopo Hammett, e ancor più dopo Chandler (da me nettamente preferito al primo), il genere mistery crime, nella sua coniugazione hard boiled, aveva ancora qualcosa da regalarmi di così alto e appassionante livello, il mondo doveva per forza essere un gran bel posto.
Un po’ di anni dopo, non pochi, penso che Kenneth Millar sia uno scrittore portentoso nel suo genere, mail mondo non si è rivelato quel gran bel posto che m’ero illuso dovesse essere.
E per certi versi questo artista del mistery crime supera i due maestri capostipiti del genere perché scalda le sue storie (qui ci sono sette racconti) con una nuova sensibilità basata su una buona conoscenza di Freud e della psicologia, e con la consapevolezza dell’umano soffrire.
Kenneth Millar non ha mai nascosto la sua appartenenza alla scuola hard boiled inaugurata venti/trenta anni prima dai suoi predecessori Hammett e Chandler: il suo eroe Archer prende il nome da Miles Archer, il collega di Sam Spade, la creatura hammettiana, che viene assassinato in Il falcone maltese.
L’Archer di Kenneth Millar era un osso duro di poche parole che poteva competere in dialoghi serrati basate su frecciate, battute, freddure (wisecrack) con “bulli e pupe”, anche se i bulli erano gangster, e anche se le pupe parlavano con un Martini accent profumando di chlorine and sex, mentre portava giustizia nei recessi più oscuri della sunny California.
Tra i suoi leitmotiv: ricchi indolenti con prole inetta e capricciosa – una colpa commessa nel passato che torna ad affacciarsi nel presente gettando ombra pericolosa anche sulla prole del responsabile (e qui si apre il discorso di quanto abbia fatto ricorso ai miti classici, con la mediazione della psicanalisi) – matrimoni sbagliati con contorno di proprietà trafugate – identità multiple, e cioè personaggi che vengono scambiati per altri, con la confusione che ne consegue (fratello e sorella sono invece amanti, madre e figlio sono invece sposati…)
Le sue trame si tengono lontane dagli intrecci pazzeschi a prova di comprensione di Hammett e Chandler: Kenneth Millar vuole invece che il lettore capisca oltre il chi e il come, soprattutto il perché.
Come dicevo, rispetto a Marlowe e Spade, Archer ha un altro spessore e un’altra profondità di personaggio, che secondo me lo rende più umano e più credibile: sotto la scorza dura, il suo gusto per donne e alcolici, è un uomo che conosce il dolore, conosce empatia e compassione. Arriva a dichiararlo esplicitamente, I have a secret passion for mercy, magari nascondendo la pietà in un ghigno amaro. Se gli offrono una mazzetta, gli propongono di farsi comprare, risponde che non potrebbe neppure permettersi di pagare le tasse su una cifra del genere, e però subito dopo la freddura, aggiunge: It wouldn't belong to me, I would belong to it.
Dimenticavo di dire che Kenneth Millar lasciò il suo vero cognome alla moglie e collega scrittrice Margaret Sturm, che si firmava appunto Margaret Millar, e adottò il nome d’arte di Ross Macdonald.
Kenneth Millar e Ross Macdonald.
May 12, 2019
These seven short stories offer us an interesting glimpse of Macdonald polishing his craft in the magazine trade. Even the earliest stories included here are professional and well-made, but I get the feeling that smaller forms--even the novella, one of which ("The Bearded Lady") is included here--were not ideal for a Lew Archer tale. Archer is at his best investigating the past and its present consequences, and the past demands a certain length to tell its story.
A few of the later tales--"The Suicide" and "The Guilt Edged Blonde"--show the promise of things to come, but they are still inferior to Macdonald's less successful novels of the period. Still, they are Lew Archer stories. And second-rate Archer is good enough for me.
December 29, 2025
This classic collection consists of nine noir mystery short stories. The nine murder or disapperance cases that my favourite detective Lew Archer is trying to solve. Sometimes he has to risk his health or life doing this. Sometimes he has empathy for the people in trouble (especially beautiful women in distress). He has no illusions about the human nature but he definitely has principles and moral decency.
There is only one drawback about this short story collection - there are ONLY nine stories. I wish there were more of them.
There is only one drawback about this short story collection - there are ONLY nine stories. I wish there were more of them.
June 18, 2016
Ross Macdonald was a pseudonym for Kenneth Millar (1915–1983). Millar was an author best known for creating the character of Lew Archer, a California Private Investigator. Millar was born in California and lived in Ontario, Canada, until his father abandoned his mother, uprooting their family and forcing them to move again and again over the next few years.
While attending the University of Michigan, Millar began writing pulp fiction, publishing his first novel, "The Dark Tunnel", in 1944. Millar introduced Lew Archer, the tough but sensitive private detective in the 1946 short story “Find the Woman.” That story is the first in this collection.
Table of Contents:
ix - Introduction - Ross Macdonald (1976)
001 - “Find the Woman” (June 1946)
023 - “Gone Girl” (Feb 1953)
053 - “The Bearded Lady” (Oct 1948)
101 - “The Suicide” (Oct 1953)
135 - “Guilt-Edged Blonde” (Jan 1954)
149 -“The Sinister Habit” (May 1953)
183 - “Wild Goose Chase” (Jul 1954)
205 - “Midnight Blue” (Oct 1960)
231 - “Sleeping Dog” (Apr 1965)
For his fifth novel, in 1949, 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 his pen name briefly to John Ross Macdonald, before settling on Ross Macdonald, in order to avoid being confused with fellow mystery writer John D. MacDonald.
It's amazing how well these stories hold up after half a century. Credit must be given to Ross MacDonald.
The book comes in a mylar dust jacket.
While attending the University of Michigan, Millar began writing pulp fiction, publishing his first novel, "The Dark Tunnel", in 1944. Millar introduced Lew Archer, the tough but sensitive private detective in the 1946 short story “Find the Woman.” That story is the first in this collection.
Table of Contents:
ix - Introduction - Ross Macdonald (1976)
001 - “Find the Woman” (June 1946)
023 - “Gone Girl” (Feb 1953)
053 - “The Bearded Lady” (Oct 1948)
101 - “The Suicide” (Oct 1953)
135 - “Guilt-Edged Blonde” (Jan 1954)
149 -“The Sinister Habit” (May 1953)
183 - “Wild Goose Chase” (Jul 1954)
205 - “Midnight Blue” (Oct 1960)
231 - “Sleeping Dog” (Apr 1965)
For his fifth novel, in 1949, 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 his pen name briefly to John Ross Macdonald, before settling on Ross Macdonald, in order to avoid being confused with fellow mystery writer John D. MacDonald.
It's amazing how well these stories hold up after half a century. Credit must be given to Ross MacDonald.
The book comes in a mylar dust jacket.
June 7, 2016
I enjoyed these stories. it got me thinking about having a job where you come into contact with people at pretty much the worst time in their lives, and then when things are kind of cleaned up, you sail away. no wonder these hardboiled guys are so cynical. I liked Lew almost as much as Philip Marlowe, and I thought it was fun that he spends some time in San Diego (where I live now; I lived in Los Angeles when I was reading Raymond Chandler -- it's cool to hear about what these places that I know were like, years and years ago). at times the set-up is a bit far-fetched, but there are some interesting characters and the resolutions are pretty satisfying. I definitely want to read more.
November 27, 2007
This book is proof to the mastery of MacDonald's talent. Within these pages are a dozen or so short stories chronicling a few cases taken by the great detective protagonist Lew Archer. What MacDonald usually accomplishes in 200 lean pages, he triumphs at executing in 20. It is amazing that in just a short amount of lines, he can get the reader knee deep in a mystery, still throw in a few twists, then escape the other side with a great ending. He is amazing.
Anyone not wanting to invest in a full novel to get an idea of MacDonald's style and power need only to read a couple of these short stories and you'll be hooked.
I used "Wildgoose Chase" in my freshman honors class and they loved it. Some of our best discussions stemmed from that story, and like myself they were amazed to find out it was over forty years old.
Anyone not wanting to invest in a full novel to get an idea of MacDonald's style and power need only to read a couple of these short stories and you'll be hooked.
I used "Wildgoose Chase" in my freshman honors class and they loved it. Some of our best discussions stemmed from that story, and like myself they were amazed to find out it was over forty years old.
September 2, 2011
"Lew Archer Private Investigator" is a collection of short stories that span the early to middle career of both author and detective; a period of about 20 years. Every one of these stories is worth reading. Ross Macdonald (birth name Kenneth Millar) could always string words together in an interesting way. As with most writers, his skill and style grew over time resulting in a familiar "set" to the Lew Archer character and novels. Apparently Mr. Macdonald did not write many short stories involving Archer even though he wrote during then through the period when magazine fiction (mostly shorts) was very popular and there was a plethora of outlets for even a halfway decent hack. (Kurt Vonnegut wrote about how he himself entered the landscape just as the outlet for short stories collapsed, forcing him to move to the novel as his primary format.)
I greatly enjoyed reading how Archer evolved into the man of "The Wycherly Woman" and "The Galton Case" (the two novels I have read so far). Taken by themselves, these are good to very good stories and I would have enjoyed them even had I never seen the novels. Until I got to the second story, "Gone Girl" I was convinced I had never read anything by Ross Macdonald until I picked up "The Wycherly Woman" a few weeks ago. More on that below. In the earliest stories one sees a lot more similarity, perhaps mimicry, of earlier and contemporaneous authors in the genre. Perhaps like most people Mr. Macdonald chose to focus on successful models rather than be wholly experimental while still a novice. It's not such an unreasonable strategy and it clearly kept him alive long enough to develop into a more distinct voice.
One of the stories (third in published order, second in the book) was so familiar to me within the first two paragraphs that I knew I had read it before, but wasn't sure where or when. For more than half the story I was convinced that it was a retelling of a "Continental Op" tale by Dashiell Hammet. As I read the final pages I knew that I must have read this exact piece ("Gone Girl" aka "The Imaginary Blonde") in some anthology; the ending is too specific for it to have been something just "similar". According to the original publication date, it was written about 10 years after the first piece included. So, I think it is rather an homage to the elder master, rather than a copy of one. No matter what the motivation it is one of the best stories in the book.
If you prefer short fiction to novels, then I recommend this book. And, if you simply like good detective fiction not matter what the length or the period, I recommend this book. The writing is "tight" and accurate (which counts for more in these lengths than in a novel) and the plots are all decent - even if they rework some of the basic well-worn themes. Macdonald makes his fiction interesting; I don't think there is a "dud" in this book.
I greatly enjoyed reading how Archer evolved into the man of "The Wycherly Woman" and "The Galton Case" (the two novels I have read so far). Taken by themselves, these are good to very good stories and I would have enjoyed them even had I never seen the novels. Until I got to the second story, "Gone Girl" I was convinced I had never read anything by Ross Macdonald until I picked up "The Wycherly Woman" a few weeks ago. More on that below. In the earliest stories one sees a lot more similarity, perhaps mimicry, of earlier and contemporaneous authors in the genre. Perhaps like most people Mr. Macdonald chose to focus on successful models rather than be wholly experimental while still a novice. It's not such an unreasonable strategy and it clearly kept him alive long enough to develop into a more distinct voice.
One of the stories (third in published order, second in the book) was so familiar to me within the first two paragraphs that I knew I had read it before, but wasn't sure where or when. For more than half the story I was convinced that it was a retelling of a "Continental Op" tale by Dashiell Hammet. As I read the final pages I knew that I must have read this exact piece ("Gone Girl" aka "The Imaginary Blonde") in some anthology; the ending is too specific for it to have been something just "similar". According to the original publication date, it was written about 10 years after the first piece included. So, I think it is rather an homage to the elder master, rather than a copy of one. No matter what the motivation it is one of the best stories in the book.
If you prefer short fiction to novels, then I recommend this book. And, if you simply like good detective fiction not matter what the length or the period, I recommend this book. The writing is "tight" and accurate (which counts for more in these lengths than in a novel) and the plots are all decent - even if they rework some of the basic well-worn themes. Macdonald makes his fiction interesting; I don't think there is a "dud" in this book.
October 12, 2014
This hardboiled multi-story collection featuring private eye Lew Archer is an almost "what's what" in gumshoe plot devices. While some stories work better than others in my opinion even the weakest can be viewed as good or passable. The prose is poetic with some smart writing (including a twist ending in the story "The Sinster Habit" that I honestly didn't see coming but made perfect sense when I re-read it)that shows that solid story telling has no timeframe or expiration date.
May 29, 2014
Some great little stories and some not so great. However, despite some ridiculous far fetched plots that are so unlikely it's laughable , the spare stripped down prose is superb . Archer is a great character . This book of shorts gave me an intro to Ross macdonald's iconic hero and I have acquired five more full length archer novels which I hope will be less convoluted than these short stories .
April 11, 2021
review of
Ross MacDonald's The Name is Archer
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - April 8-10, 2021
I've probably given roughly the same intro to every bk of short stories that I've reviewed: viz that I don't like short stories nearly as much as novels & generally avoid them. That sd, I might as well follow that w/ a similarly predictable statement: one standard that the quality of a short story is judged by is how much can be made to happen in a brief space. MacDonald's 7 stories in this collection are point-blank amazing in that respect. Every one of them is an absolutely engrossing labyrinth of the twists & turns that one usually hopes for in a mystery. In fact, these are novels in & of themselves. Each one cd easily be turned into a feature-length movie. Simply as a writer I find it close to impossible to find fault w/ MacDonald. Take this description in the 1st story, "Find the Woman":
"Mrs. Dreen was over forty and looked it, but there was electricity in her, plugging into a secret source that time could never wear out. Look how high and tight I carry my body, her movements said. My hair is hennaed but comely, said her coiffure, inviting not to conviction but to suspension of disbelief. Her eyes were green and inconstant like the sea. They said what the hell." - p 1
His presentation of his characters is almost always full, he seems to be a good observer of human nature & to use this skill in making his characters complicated by a depth of qualities & emotions & psychological nuance that makes the author a great novelist regardless of the additional crime fiction elements.
This 1st story seems to be from 1946. As w/ the earliest novel of his that I've read, this means that WWII is still fresh in the memory.
""Frankly, I don't know about the police. I do know about you, Mr. Archer. You just got out of the army, didn't you?"
""Last week." I failed to add that she was my first post-war client." - p 2
Archer's been hired to find Mrs. Dreen's missing daughter. The story foreshadows quickly.
"And I wondered if her daughter Una was like her.
"When I did get to see Una, the current had been cut off; I learned about it only by the marks it left. It left marks." - p 4
MacDonald's forays into 'poetic' descriptiveness always interest me. He often uses it as a transitional device.
"I went down the road to the beach house like a bat into hell. The sun, huge and angry red, was horizontal now, half-eclipsed by the sea and almost perceptibly sinking. It spread a red glow over the shore like a soft and creeping fire. After a long time, I thought, the cliffs would crumble, the sea would dry up, the whole earth would burn out. There'd be nothing left but bone-white cratered ashes like the moon." - p 13
Notice that it's NOT 'like a bat outta hell'.
The diabolical selfishness of the solution to "Find the Woman"'s mystery is of such a nature that whether Archer will report it to the police as a crime is left ambiguous.
""I hope for your sake he doesn't figure out for himself what I've just figured out."
""Do you think he will?" Sudden terror had jerked her face apart.
"I didn't answer her." - p 26
MacDonald's stories have psychological depth & Archer usually has sympathy for the miseries of the people he encounters in his unravelings.. but not always..
"I pushed past him, through a kitchenette that was indescribably filthy, littered with the remnants of old meals, and gaseous with their odors. He followed me silently on bare soles into a larger room whose sprung floorboards undulated under my feet. The picture window had been broken and patched with cardboard. The stone fireplace was choked with garbage. The only furniture was an army cot in one corner where Donny apparently slept.
""Nice homey place you have here. It has that lived-in quality."
"He seemed to take it as a compliment, and I wondered if I was dealing with a moron." - "Gone Girl", p 38
It's hard for me to say whether MacDonald's characterizations are realistic or the literary facsimile of realism. That might seem like a strange distinction but what I mean is that in the interest of making characters distinct he gives them characteristics that aren't impossible but unlikely to encounter.
""Fifty-second Street?"
""It's the street with the beat and I'm not effete." His left hand struck the same chord three times and dropped away from the keys. "Looking for somebody, friend?"
""Fern Dee. She asked me to drop by sometimes."
""Too bad. Another wasted trip. She left here end of last year, the dear. She wasn't a bad little nightingale but she was no pro, Joe, you know? She had it but she couldn't project it. When she warbled the evening died, no matter how hard she tried, I don't wanna be snide."" - p 44
& then there's the description again.
"He smiled at me, with a tolerance more terrible than anger. His eyes were like thin stab-wounds filled with watery blood." - p 50
One thing that seems to recur w/ MacDonald is Archer's contempt for artistic & musical types (even tho the author, himself, is very literate).
"He led me through a storeroom stacked with old gilt-framed pictures whose painters deserved to be hung. If the pictures didn't." - p 74
It seems to me that MacDonald has commented on the following more than once:
"The rest of the walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling—the kind of books that are bought by the set and never read." - p 108
As a former book seller I can attest that some people do buy bks just to use a props for presenting a certain appearance. What I wonder is: Is that obsolete now as something meant to impress? It seems to me that we've entered a new era where so few people care about bks that such pretense wdn't even work anymore. Maybe a plentitude of easily demonstrated apps on one's phone is the new wall-of-(unread)-bks. At least people use the apps. I'd rather have them read the bks - but then I'm an outsider.
"The dead man's record also helped. He had been widely suspected of shooting Bugsy Siegel, and had fallen heir to some of Seigel's holdings. His name was Jack Fidelis. R.I.P." - p 156
An actual specific reference to a 'real-life gangster' seemed so uncharacteristic of MacDonald that I just had to look up Fidelis. I didn't find Fidelis so that makes me wonder what MacDonald knew that later writers didn't know:
"According to New York journalist and author Larry McShane, even former Philadelphia Mafia boss Ralph Natale, later a Mob turncoat, believes the Siegel hit was carried out by Carbo and was set up by Lansky, Siegel’s childhood friend.
"West Coast hit man Jimmy “The Weasel” Fratianno, who temporarily served as head of the Los Angeles crime family before becoming a government witness, supported the Carbo theory. Fratianno’s telling of it is laid out in a 1980 book about his criminal life, The Last Mafioso, by Ovid Demaris, one of the authors of The Green Felt Jungle.
In the book, Fratianno claims that L.A. Mafia boss Jack Dragna told him Carbo did the killing on Lansky’s orders.
"The motive: Siegel was a dreamer who had been dreaming with “important” people’s money in constructing the Flamingo. Messing with someone else’s money is the “fastest way to get clipped,” Dragna told Fratianno, according to the book.
"One who disagrees with the Mob hit theory is Bernie Sindler, an emissary of Lansky’s in Las Vegas during that era.
"In a 2017 interview at The Mob Museum with author Geoff Schumacher, the museum’s senior director of content, Sindler, now in his 90s, said killing Siegel would have required permission from Charles “Lucky” Luciano, “who was the head of everything.” Luciano would not have given permission because Lansky, who was close to Luciano, would not have allowed the killing to happen, Sindler said in the interview.
According to Sindler, that made Siegel “untouchable.”"
[..]
"Moreover, the method used to kill Siegel was out of sync with the Mob way of doing things. Firing a weapon from outside a house increases the risk of missing, Sindler said. That is not how Mob hit men carried out their deadly assignments. The preferred method was a shot to the back of the head by a killer seated behind the victim in a car. That sort of killing reduces the risk of missing.
"The shooter, Sindler contended, was one of Virginia Hill’s brothers, a U.S. Marine named either Bob or Bill — he couldn’t remember which. The Marine brother was stationed at Camp Pendleton near Oceanside, California."
- https://themobmuseum.org/blog/killed-...
I wonder when bullet-proofing was invented?
"Harry Nemo took me outside to his car. It was a new seven-passenger custom job, as long and black as death. The windshield and side-windows were very thick, and they had the yellowish tinge of bullet-proof glass.
""Are you expecting to be shot at?"
""Not me." His smile was dismal. "This is Nick's car."" - "Guilt-Edged Blonde", p 163
"History: According to Inkasarmored.com, the concept of bullet-resistant glass was stumbled upon quite by accident in the 17th century, but it wasn’t until 1903 that the quest of researching and developing “bulletproof” glass began. Modern “bulletproof” glass was first patented by French chemist, Édouard Bénédictus in 1909." - https://glassdoctor.com/blog/how-is-b...
Have any hard-boiled detective fiction writers ever had their protagonists be w/o a sarcastic sense of humor?
""Might you be Archer?"
""It's a reasonable conclusion. Name's on the door."
""I can read, thank you."
""Congratulations, but this is no talent agency."
"He stiffened, clutching his blue chin with a seal-ringed hand, and gave me a long, sad, hostile stare. Then he shrugged awkwardly, as though there was no help for it.
""Come on in if you like," I said. "Close it behind you. Don't mind me, I get snappy in the heat."" - "The Sinister Habit", p 179
Does that make him a snappy addresser?!
["]He's a brilliant creative artist in the theatre."
""Have you ever heard of him, Archer?"
""No."
""Leonard Lister?" the old woman said. "Surely you know his name, if you live in Los Angeles. He's a well-known director of the experimental theatre. He's even taught at the University. Leonard has wonderful plans for making poetic film, like Cocteau's in France."" - p 187
You mean Archer doesn't follow experimental theater? & why do they use the British spelling? B/c it's easier to turn into "theatrical"?
MacDonald's formal device of using description for section beginnings & endings & for segues is apparent here:
"The plane turned in towards the shoreline and began to lose altitude. Mountains detached themselves from the blue distance. Then there was a city between the sea and the mountains, a little city made of sugar cubes. The cubes increased in size. Cars crawled like colored beetles between the buildings, and matchstick figures hustled jerkily along the white morning pavements. A few minutes later I was one of them." - "Wild Goose Chase", p 221
If the plane had crashed, it wd've been a result of its bad altitude.
Ross MacDonald's The Name is Archer
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - April 8-10, 2021
I've probably given roughly the same intro to every bk of short stories that I've reviewed: viz that I don't like short stories nearly as much as novels & generally avoid them. That sd, I might as well follow that w/ a similarly predictable statement: one standard that the quality of a short story is judged by is how much can be made to happen in a brief space. MacDonald's 7 stories in this collection are point-blank amazing in that respect. Every one of them is an absolutely engrossing labyrinth of the twists & turns that one usually hopes for in a mystery. In fact, these are novels in & of themselves. Each one cd easily be turned into a feature-length movie. Simply as a writer I find it close to impossible to find fault w/ MacDonald. Take this description in the 1st story, "Find the Woman":
"Mrs. Dreen was over forty and looked it, but there was electricity in her, plugging into a secret source that time could never wear out. Look how high and tight I carry my body, her movements said. My hair is hennaed but comely, said her coiffure, inviting not to conviction but to suspension of disbelief. Her eyes were green and inconstant like the sea. They said what the hell." - p 1
His presentation of his characters is almost always full, he seems to be a good observer of human nature & to use this skill in making his characters complicated by a depth of qualities & emotions & psychological nuance that makes the author a great novelist regardless of the additional crime fiction elements.
This 1st story seems to be from 1946. As w/ the earliest novel of his that I've read, this means that WWII is still fresh in the memory.
""Frankly, I don't know about the police. I do know about you, Mr. Archer. You just got out of the army, didn't you?"
""Last week." I failed to add that she was my first post-war client." - p 2
Archer's been hired to find Mrs. Dreen's missing daughter. The story foreshadows quickly.
"And I wondered if her daughter Una was like her.
"When I did get to see Una, the current had been cut off; I learned about it only by the marks it left. It left marks." - p 4
MacDonald's forays into 'poetic' descriptiveness always interest me. He often uses it as a transitional device.
"I went down the road to the beach house like a bat into hell. The sun, huge and angry red, was horizontal now, half-eclipsed by the sea and almost perceptibly sinking. It spread a red glow over the shore like a soft and creeping fire. After a long time, I thought, the cliffs would crumble, the sea would dry up, the whole earth would burn out. There'd be nothing left but bone-white cratered ashes like the moon." - p 13
Notice that it's NOT 'like a bat outta hell'.
The diabolical selfishness of the solution to "Find the Woman"'s mystery is of such a nature that whether Archer will report it to the police as a crime is left ambiguous.
""I hope for your sake he doesn't figure out for himself what I've just figured out."
""Do you think he will?" Sudden terror had jerked her face apart.
"I didn't answer her." - p 26
MacDonald's stories have psychological depth & Archer usually has sympathy for the miseries of the people he encounters in his unravelings.. but not always..
"I pushed past him, through a kitchenette that was indescribably filthy, littered with the remnants of old meals, and gaseous with their odors. He followed me silently on bare soles into a larger room whose sprung floorboards undulated under my feet. The picture window had been broken and patched with cardboard. The stone fireplace was choked with garbage. The only furniture was an army cot in one corner where Donny apparently slept.
""Nice homey place you have here. It has that lived-in quality."
"He seemed to take it as a compliment, and I wondered if I was dealing with a moron." - "Gone Girl", p 38
It's hard for me to say whether MacDonald's characterizations are realistic or the literary facsimile of realism. That might seem like a strange distinction but what I mean is that in the interest of making characters distinct he gives them characteristics that aren't impossible but unlikely to encounter.
""Fifty-second Street?"
""It's the street with the beat and I'm not effete." His left hand struck the same chord three times and dropped away from the keys. "Looking for somebody, friend?"
""Fern Dee. She asked me to drop by sometimes."
""Too bad. Another wasted trip. She left here end of last year, the dear. She wasn't a bad little nightingale but she was no pro, Joe, you know? She had it but she couldn't project it. When she warbled the evening died, no matter how hard she tried, I don't wanna be snide."" - p 44
& then there's the description again.
"He smiled at me, with a tolerance more terrible than anger. His eyes were like thin stab-wounds filled with watery blood." - p 50
One thing that seems to recur w/ MacDonald is Archer's contempt for artistic & musical types (even tho the author, himself, is very literate).
"He led me through a storeroom stacked with old gilt-framed pictures whose painters deserved to be hung. If the pictures didn't." - p 74
It seems to me that MacDonald has commented on the following more than once:
"The rest of the walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling—the kind of books that are bought by the set and never read." - p 108
As a former book seller I can attest that some people do buy bks just to use a props for presenting a certain appearance. What I wonder is: Is that obsolete now as something meant to impress? It seems to me that we've entered a new era where so few people care about bks that such pretense wdn't even work anymore. Maybe a plentitude of easily demonstrated apps on one's phone is the new wall-of-(unread)-bks. At least people use the apps. I'd rather have them read the bks - but then I'm an outsider.
"The dead man's record also helped. He had been widely suspected of shooting Bugsy Siegel, and had fallen heir to some of Seigel's holdings. His name was Jack Fidelis. R.I.P." - p 156
An actual specific reference to a 'real-life gangster' seemed so uncharacteristic of MacDonald that I just had to look up Fidelis. I didn't find Fidelis so that makes me wonder what MacDonald knew that later writers didn't know:
"According to New York journalist and author Larry McShane, even former Philadelphia Mafia boss Ralph Natale, later a Mob turncoat, believes the Siegel hit was carried out by Carbo and was set up by Lansky, Siegel’s childhood friend.
"West Coast hit man Jimmy “The Weasel” Fratianno, who temporarily served as head of the Los Angeles crime family before becoming a government witness, supported the Carbo theory. Fratianno’s telling of it is laid out in a 1980 book about his criminal life, The Last Mafioso, by Ovid Demaris, one of the authors of The Green Felt Jungle.
In the book, Fratianno claims that L.A. Mafia boss Jack Dragna told him Carbo did the killing on Lansky’s orders.
"The motive: Siegel was a dreamer who had been dreaming with “important” people’s money in constructing the Flamingo. Messing with someone else’s money is the “fastest way to get clipped,” Dragna told Fratianno, according to the book.
"One who disagrees with the Mob hit theory is Bernie Sindler, an emissary of Lansky’s in Las Vegas during that era.
"In a 2017 interview at The Mob Museum with author Geoff Schumacher, the museum’s senior director of content, Sindler, now in his 90s, said killing Siegel would have required permission from Charles “Lucky” Luciano, “who was the head of everything.” Luciano would not have given permission because Lansky, who was close to Luciano, would not have allowed the killing to happen, Sindler said in the interview.
According to Sindler, that made Siegel “untouchable.”"
[..]
"Moreover, the method used to kill Siegel was out of sync with the Mob way of doing things. Firing a weapon from outside a house increases the risk of missing, Sindler said. That is not how Mob hit men carried out their deadly assignments. The preferred method was a shot to the back of the head by a killer seated behind the victim in a car. That sort of killing reduces the risk of missing.
"The shooter, Sindler contended, was one of Virginia Hill’s brothers, a U.S. Marine named either Bob or Bill — he couldn’t remember which. The Marine brother was stationed at Camp Pendleton near Oceanside, California."
- https://themobmuseum.org/blog/killed-...
I wonder when bullet-proofing was invented?
"Harry Nemo took me outside to his car. It was a new seven-passenger custom job, as long and black as death. The windshield and side-windows were very thick, and they had the yellowish tinge of bullet-proof glass.
""Are you expecting to be shot at?"
""Not me." His smile was dismal. "This is Nick's car."" - "Guilt-Edged Blonde", p 163
"History: According to Inkasarmored.com, the concept of bullet-resistant glass was stumbled upon quite by accident in the 17th century, but it wasn’t until 1903 that the quest of researching and developing “bulletproof” glass began. Modern “bulletproof” glass was first patented by French chemist, Édouard Bénédictus in 1909." - https://glassdoctor.com/blog/how-is-b...
Have any hard-boiled detective fiction writers ever had their protagonists be w/o a sarcastic sense of humor?
""Might you be Archer?"
""It's a reasonable conclusion. Name's on the door."
""I can read, thank you."
""Congratulations, but this is no talent agency."
"He stiffened, clutching his blue chin with a seal-ringed hand, and gave me a long, sad, hostile stare. Then he shrugged awkwardly, as though there was no help for it.
""Come on in if you like," I said. "Close it behind you. Don't mind me, I get snappy in the heat."" - "The Sinister Habit", p 179
Does that make him a snappy addresser?!
["]He's a brilliant creative artist in the theatre."
""Have you ever heard of him, Archer?"
""No."
""Leonard Lister?" the old woman said. "Surely you know his name, if you live in Los Angeles. He's a well-known director of the experimental theatre. He's even taught at the University. Leonard has wonderful plans for making poetic film, like Cocteau's in France."" - p 187
You mean Archer doesn't follow experimental theater? & why do they use the British spelling? B/c it's easier to turn into "theatrical"?
MacDonald's formal device of using description for section beginnings & endings & for segues is apparent here:
"The plane turned in towards the shoreline and began to lose altitude. Mountains detached themselves from the blue distance. Then there was a city between the sea and the mountains, a little city made of sugar cubes. The cubes increased in size. Cars crawled like colored beetles between the buildings, and matchstick figures hustled jerkily along the white morning pavements. A few minutes later I was one of them." - "Wild Goose Chase", p 221
If the plane had crashed, it wd've been a result of its bad altitude.
May 28, 2022
Out of the two post-war heirs to Raymond Chandler's title as master of the American hardboiled detective novel, it was Mickey Spillane who conquered the bestseller lists but Ross Macdonald whom the academic literates embraced. It's not difficult to see why even from this anthology of early short stories where Macdonald's heroic private eye Lewis Archer is hard to distinguish from a more introverted Philip Marlowe. Macdonald seems to have gone in the complete opposite direction of Spillane by downplaying the trademark sleaze and grit of Hammett and Chandler in favour of introspection and complex moral dilemmas.
Another difference which already at this point gives Macdonald his own distinct vibe is that instead of the Great Depression and World War Two, Lew Archer's adventures take place against the backdrop of the immediate post-WW2 economic boom which resulted in one of the most optimistic and prosperous eras in American history. Macdonald takes great advantage of this by making a point out of showing the dysfunction and neurosis beneath the surface of modernity and progress. That entire theme might be something of a cliché now, one that Macdonald probably helped invent, the reason it works here being that unusually intellectual take on the hardboiled detective genre I mentioned before. There's very little explicit sex or violence in most of the stories, and they don't show anywhere as much interaction between different layers of society instead focusing on for the most part internal conflicts among financially successful families.
At the same time, calling Macdonald's approach to the genre psychological rather than sociological would be a gross oversimplification. Throughout he shows a keen sense of milieu both in terms of geography, architecture and social dynamics with an interesting emphasis on the changing gender roles of the era. The important part is that in the stories' central conflict it's usually difficult to make out a moral high ground, and every part is thoroughly humanized even when being clearly in the wrong or doing reprehensible things.
His writing is still not quite as perfect as it would become later, with Archer often being something of a cipher characterization-wise and a couple storylines being resolved in a somewhat awkward manner with an over-reliance on clichéd plot twists such as last-minute confessions from the culprit. Nonetheless, anyone who likes the genre at all would do well to check this out.
Another difference which already at this point gives Macdonald his own distinct vibe is that instead of the Great Depression and World War Two, Lew Archer's adventures take place against the backdrop of the immediate post-WW2 economic boom which resulted in one of the most optimistic and prosperous eras in American history. Macdonald takes great advantage of this by making a point out of showing the dysfunction and neurosis beneath the surface of modernity and progress. That entire theme might be something of a cliché now, one that Macdonald probably helped invent, the reason it works here being that unusually intellectual take on the hardboiled detective genre I mentioned before. There's very little explicit sex or violence in most of the stories, and they don't show anywhere as much interaction between different layers of society instead focusing on for the most part internal conflicts among financially successful families.
At the same time, calling Macdonald's approach to the genre psychological rather than sociological would be a gross oversimplification. Throughout he shows a keen sense of milieu both in terms of geography, architecture and social dynamics with an interesting emphasis on the changing gender roles of the era. The important part is that in the stories' central conflict it's usually difficult to make out a moral high ground, and every part is thoroughly humanized even when being clearly in the wrong or doing reprehensible things.
His writing is still not quite as perfect as it would become later, with Archer often being something of a cipher characterization-wise and a couple storylines being resolved in a somewhat awkward manner with an over-reliance on clichéd plot twists such as last-minute confessions from the culprit. Nonetheless, anyone who likes the genre at all would do well to check this out.
September 26, 2011
Collection of short stories a couple of which pre-date the first Archer novel. They're generally worth reading, but MacDonald didn't make his reputation on the strength of his short fiction. The plots are OK. And the dialogue is generally fine. But the penchant for the bad-guy to enter in to a long confession at the end of each story is tiresome and silly.
January 30, 2015
9 terrific short stories starring the iconic detective Lew Archer! Great character and great writing! Of all the gems in here, I liked "The Sinister Habit" the best, with all of its twist and turns! A fun collection that reads quickly!
February 26, 2026
A short story collection featuring Lew Archer, the story's are perfectly formed, feature great characters and are perfectly plotted.
September 7, 2016
Good collection of Crime Noir with the same detective, Lew Archer ultimately outsmarting murderers and seductive females.
Read
March 10, 2020I always read a book strictly in order, so it wasn’t until I encountered the author’s note in the back that I learned that Ross Macdonald (whose name was not really Ross Macdonald) had a PhD. (But what was his PhD in?)
This isn’t a novel; it’s the complete short stories about Lew Archer, the canny, combative LA detective. We learn nothing about Archer’s private life, except in the last story, which reveals that he has a young German Shepherd that he takes to obedience school. We never see Archer’s apartment or learn his marital status, though he does seem incessantly attracted to every blonde in the universe.
Also he was in the Army. This fact is mentioned over and over. It’s possible that Archer has PTSD, and that in some counterphobic way, looking at lots of LA corpses helps him overcome war trauma.
Archer is very ethical, and never drinks. He’s always being hired as a private detective – often by the actual murderer – and just about always receives $100, in cash. Macdonald may have invented the non-alcoholic noir detective. Occasionally Archer has a beer, but just to humor his new friend. He’s constantly meeting people, becoming attracted to them, and then arresting them (or more precisely, calling the cops on them). In a way, it’s a sad life.
Macdonald is a fine stylist, and a psychologist of the first order. He seems to have an affinity for visual art. “The Bearded Lady” involves the death of an artist friend (with the punning name “Hugh Western”) who leaves behind a lascivious charcoal sketch of a bearded woman.
Ross Macdonald writes like a deeply depressed Flaubert.
Opening the book at random:
Our dragging footsteps crunched the gravel. I looked down at the specks of gravel in Nikki Nemo’s eyes, the bullet hole in his temple.
“Who got him, Harry?”
“I don’t know. Fats Jordan, or Artie Castola, or Faronese. It must’ve been one of them.”
“The Purple Gang.”
[Macdonald’s real name was Kenneth Millar. His PhD was in literature, received “in Michigan,” according to Wikipedia.]
This isn’t a novel; it’s the complete short stories about Lew Archer, the canny, combative LA detective. We learn nothing about Archer’s private life, except in the last story, which reveals that he has a young German Shepherd that he takes to obedience school. We never see Archer’s apartment or learn his marital status, though he does seem incessantly attracted to every blonde in the universe.
Also he was in the Army. This fact is mentioned over and over. It’s possible that Archer has PTSD, and that in some counterphobic way, looking at lots of LA corpses helps him overcome war trauma.
Archer is very ethical, and never drinks. He’s always being hired as a private detective – often by the actual murderer – and just about always receives $100, in cash. Macdonald may have invented the non-alcoholic noir detective. Occasionally Archer has a beer, but just to humor his new friend. He’s constantly meeting people, becoming attracted to them, and then arresting them (or more precisely, calling the cops on them). In a way, it’s a sad life.
Macdonald is a fine stylist, and a psychologist of the first order. He seems to have an affinity for visual art. “The Bearded Lady” involves the death of an artist friend (with the punning name “Hugh Western”) who leaves behind a lascivious charcoal sketch of a bearded woman.
Ross Macdonald writes like a deeply depressed Flaubert.
Opening the book at random:
Our dragging footsteps crunched the gravel. I looked down at the specks of gravel in Nikki Nemo’s eyes, the bullet hole in his temple.
“Who got him, Harry?”
“I don’t know. Fats Jordan, or Artie Castola, or Faronese. It must’ve been one of them.”
“The Purple Gang.”
[Macdonald’s real name was Kenneth Millar. His PhD was in literature, received “in Michigan,” according to Wikipedia.]
March 25, 2015
During my hard-boiled period (i.e. when
I was going through Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, like there would be no
tomorrow) I had managed to procure an old copy of this book. And yes, compared to "The Galton Case" or "The Chill", these stories are rough & rushed. However, some unforgettable lines, a narrative that's so crisp that you can cut yourself with it, and the character of Lew Archer ought to be sufficient for you to pick up this book, or its later expanded version (The Archer Files).
I was going through Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, like there would be no
tomorrow) I had managed to procure an old copy of this book. And yes, compared to "The Galton Case" or "The Chill", these stories are rough & rushed. However, some unforgettable lines, a narrative that's so crisp that you can cut yourself with it, and the character of Lew Archer ought to be sufficient for you to pick up this book, or its later expanded version (The Archer Files).
July 28, 2009
There was Sam Spade; then,
there was Phillip Marlowe, then
there was Lew Archer
Dash Hammett
Raymond Chandler
Ross McDonald
These are the founders of what we have come to expect of the American P.I.
This book is not the best Lew Archer but it is a good collection of short stories of how Archer starts his work after WW II in Los Angeles.
Entertaining
there was Phillip Marlowe, then
there was Lew Archer
Dash Hammett
Raymond Chandler
Ross McDonald
These are the founders of what we have come to expect of the American P.I.
This book is not the best Lew Archer but it is a good collection of short stories of how Archer starts his work after WW II in Los Angeles.
Entertaining
April 16, 2017
Dead-eyed toughs and dangerous dames, mobsters and moghuls abound in this marvy little collection of tales, in which Lew Archer makes good (Marlowe style!) not once but seven times. "Guilt Edged Blonde" is the only real clunker in the bunch, and even that slides by on sheer attitude. Not for those seeking depth, but there's nothing better for atmosphere.
November 17, 2015
a wonderful collection of stories features Ross MacDonald's world weary detective. more sensitive than Marlowe but tougher than Spade Lew Archer bridged the gap between post-war nihilism and modern malaise.
July 19, 2011
Terrific so far. Lew Archer is a great pal to have at your hip, and 50's LA--actually written in 50's LA!--is a tireless setting.
August 29, 2013
Some top-draw short stuff from the Master. Even the ostensibly 'weaker' ones packed a helluva punch. That's how good the damned sonofagun was!!
December 31, 2015
Fun, fun, fun. As would be expected of this genre.
June 26, 2017
These short, punchy mysteries (usually revolving around some adultery or other) are a great way to get out of a reading slump.
January 23, 2019
Noir masterclass. Crisp, hard and beautiful prose.
September 19, 2021
Classic noir. Short stories that set the standard.
September 24, 2021
I generally don’t care for books of short stories but these were really good. Tight writing, good stories that are true to Ross’s style.
July 29, 2024
This is a collection of seven short stories by Ross Mac; all are good and several are better than good.
Many of the themes present in his later novels are on display here; but here Archer himself is more of a Marlowe-type, wise-cracking PI, as opposed to the subtly more sensitive catalyst he would become. The differences are slight but are those seen in the shift in tone the genre undertook from the 40's when MacDonald began (as Kenneth Millar, then John Ross MacDonald) to his arguable prime in the 60's.
I would recommend one of his novels (such as The Way Some People Die, my favorite) to someone wanting to try Ross Mac, but these stories are very fine examples of his writing, and are sure to entertain. (Of popular era novelists, I would say only William Campbell Gault is *better* in the short story form than in full-length novel form.)
There are similarities between these stories, as there are between Ross Mac's novels, as there are between all novels in the genre, if one is to be honest. But the sameness doesn't detract, if you don't want it to. The thrills are not in the plot, but the technique, as it is with most true masters of form. For example, I don't often hear comments on his dialogue, perhaps because it's less romanticized than much pulp slang, but it’s nonetheless strong.
Find the Woman- A Hollywood publicity diva's missing daughter and the daughter's soldier husband figure in an intricate mystery with an interesting if unlikely payoff. Written well, the adultery/jealousy themes are there, and the diva's character portrait is most satisfyingly drawn.
Gone Girl- Begins with a burst, then tells the tale of one night of murder in an isolated hotel, and the aftermath the next day, precipitated by a girl trying to escape a relationship with a racketeer.
Bearded Lady- The longest, and my least favorite, although still not bad. Ross Mac's familiar themes of a wealthy family and an undercurrent of wrong are transported into the art world, then mixed with a swatch of theft and murder. The title refers to a painting of a woman, which someone defaced by painting a beard over it.
Suicide- Archer delves into secrets between sisters, one of whom marries badly and is equally unwise with money. Maybe she is also a murderer. Somewhat typical perhaps, but well-turned and Chandler-esque.
Guilt-Edged Blonde- A quite short, merely adequate story of hidden parentage. With its small page count this one never has time to take hold.
Sinister Habit- Involved and involving story of jealousy and (of course) murder surrounding a schoolmarm and her eloping with a brutal beatnik. (Yeah, I know, but it's really very good.)
Wild Goose Chase- Short, sad tale of a man accused of murder who will not reveal his alibi to protect the woman he was with. Will he get off? Should Archer let him? Are the accused's motives really so pure? If he didn't commit the murder, who did? Ross Mac packs a lot of twists in a brief few pages, but it never seems rushed on its way to a non-traditional conclusion.
Many of the themes present in his later novels are on display here; but here Archer himself is more of a Marlowe-type, wise-cracking PI, as opposed to the subtly more sensitive catalyst he would become. The differences are slight but are those seen in the shift in tone the genre undertook from the 40's when MacDonald began (as Kenneth Millar, then John Ross MacDonald) to his arguable prime in the 60's.
I would recommend one of his novels (such as The Way Some People Die, my favorite) to someone wanting to try Ross Mac, but these stories are very fine examples of his writing, and are sure to entertain. (Of popular era novelists, I would say only William Campbell Gault is *better* in the short story form than in full-length novel form.)
There are similarities between these stories, as there are between Ross Mac's novels, as there are between all novels in the genre, if one is to be honest. But the sameness doesn't detract, if you don't want it to. The thrills are not in the plot, but the technique, as it is with most true masters of form. For example, I don't often hear comments on his dialogue, perhaps because it's less romanticized than much pulp slang, but it’s nonetheless strong.
Find the Woman- A Hollywood publicity diva's missing daughter and the daughter's soldier husband figure in an intricate mystery with an interesting if unlikely payoff. Written well, the adultery/jealousy themes are there, and the diva's character portrait is most satisfyingly drawn.
Gone Girl- Begins with a burst, then tells the tale of one night of murder in an isolated hotel, and the aftermath the next day, precipitated by a girl trying to escape a relationship with a racketeer.
Bearded Lady- The longest, and my least favorite, although still not bad. Ross Mac's familiar themes of a wealthy family and an undercurrent of wrong are transported into the art world, then mixed with a swatch of theft and murder. The title refers to a painting of a woman, which someone defaced by painting a beard over it.
Suicide- Archer delves into secrets between sisters, one of whom marries badly and is equally unwise with money. Maybe she is also a murderer. Somewhat typical perhaps, but well-turned and Chandler-esque.
Guilt-Edged Blonde- A quite short, merely adequate story of hidden parentage. With its small page count this one never has time to take hold.
Sinister Habit- Involved and involving story of jealousy and (of course) murder surrounding a schoolmarm and her eloping with a brutal beatnik. (Yeah, I know, but it's really very good.)
Wild Goose Chase- Short, sad tale of a man accused of murder who will not reveal his alibi to protect the woman he was with. Will he get off? Should Archer let him? Are the accused's motives really so pure? If he didn't commit the murder, who did? Ross Mac packs a lot of twists in a brief few pages, but it never seems rushed on its way to a non-traditional conclusion.
September 2, 2019
This a collection of short stories featuring Lew Archer, which was published in 1955, between Find a Victim and The Barbarous Coast. If Macdonald usually blends brevity of description with labyrinthine family psychological drama plotting, here he is bound by the dictates of short fiction and has to use starker brush strokes. The shorter tales work, though, because they focus on the central situation and never outstay their welcome.
The moral here is that Californian families, especially when they've made some money somewhere, are dangerous, often even lethal. Archer is a war vet turned cop turned private dick, who saunters through these mendacious family ties in search of the ugly truth they're all trying to gloss over. Parents raise their offspring with disdain and absent values; those children look out for their inheritances and the path to them, however bloody it may get, and women commit murders at rates that are decidely higher than the true statistic. Indeed, we could probably trace the male chauvinist argument that women are just as likely to kill as they are to this line of pitch-black fiction rather than any basis in reality.
Since it's harder for the murderers to hide in plain sight, Macdonald is forced to dress them up with plausible/implausible characteristics (such as being innocent, dainty and loving but with disconcerting outbreaks of cold-eyed jealousy) to keep us doubting, or to throw us so many likely bad actors that we're obliged to follow the untangling of their venal motives right to the very end to see where the poison bottle stops its spinning. Either way, we come out at the end, as we do from any Ross Macdonald joint,with optimism for the possibilities of crime writing and pessimism for the state of the Californian soul.
The moral here is that Californian families, especially when they've made some money somewhere, are dangerous, often even lethal. Archer is a war vet turned cop turned private dick, who saunters through these mendacious family ties in search of the ugly truth they're all trying to gloss over. Parents raise their offspring with disdain and absent values; those children look out for their inheritances and the path to them, however bloody it may get, and women commit murders at rates that are decidely higher than the true statistic. Indeed, we could probably trace the male chauvinist argument that women are just as likely to kill as they are to this line of pitch-black fiction rather than any basis in reality.
Since it's harder for the murderers to hide in plain sight, Macdonald is forced to dress them up with plausible/implausible characteristics (such as being innocent, dainty and loving but with disconcerting outbreaks of cold-eyed jealousy) to keep us doubting, or to throw us so many likely bad actors that we're obliged to follow the untangling of their venal motives right to the very end to see where the poison bottle stops its spinning. Either way, we come out at the end, as we do from any Ross Macdonald joint,with optimism for the possibilities of crime writing and pessimism for the state of the Californian soul.
May 30, 2023
Collection of seven short stories culled from early in the career of “noir-ish” criminal mystery writer Macdonald. The stories are not the author’s best works, but still are enjoyable reading. Each story is written in his classic style, in urban and rustic post-WWII California settings. A treat for the author’s fans. 3.5 stars
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