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Lew Archer
Strangers in Town: Three Newly Discovered Mysteries
`LOST' STORIES BY A MASTER
Ross Macdonald (1915-1983) was, according to The New York Times, the author of "the finest detective novels ever written by an American." His detective, Lew Archer, investigates character and place and the tensions and conflicts that form America. In Ross Macdonald's hands, Lew Archer's home turf, southern California, becomes symbolic and (perhaps more important) emblematic of the human struggle to make things right, to make sense of who we are.
In an important literary discovery, Macdonald biographer, Tom Nolan, unearthed three previously unpublished private-eye stories by Ross Macdonald. "Death by Water," written in 1945, features Macdonald's first detective Joe Rogers, and two novelettes from 1950 and 1955, "Strangers in Town" and "The Angry Man," are detailed cases of Lew Archer.
These `lost' stories help the reader to understand why The New York Times also said that "classify him how you will, Ross Macdonald is one of the best American novelists now operating."
Contents:
Death by water
Stranges in town
The angry man
164 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
About the author
Ross Macdonald
188 books848 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 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 19, 2017
I've read a lot of MacDonald's Archer novels and found these short stories to be likeable even if not quite up to the standard of his later work. The Angry Man was written in 1955 when MacDonald had developed his skills by writing several novels and was the best of the 3 stories and I would give it 4 stars on it's own merits. As the reviewer before me pointed out, The Angry Man was originally shelved and used as the basis, 3 years later, for The Doomsters. I still think there enough differences to read both but maybe place a couple years in between!
I found the introduction by Tom Nolan and his preface to each story to be even more interesting although it took up almost 1/3 of the written material. If you are a Ross MacDonald fan and like this sort of "behind the scenes" information then I would recommend this book for you.
I found the introduction by Tom Nolan and his preface to each story to be even more interesting although it took up almost 1/3 of the written material. If you are a Ross MacDonald fan and like this sort of "behind the scenes" information then I would recommend this book for you.
June 4, 2017
I've never read a full novel by Macdonald(/Millar), only short story collections; I take it this is not his best work. I still really enjoy his writing and reading about places I'm familiar with in Southern California.
August 26, 2026
This book contains there previously unpublished private-eye stories by Ross Macdonald. "Death by Water," written in 1945, features Macdonald's first detective Joe Rogers, and two novelettes from 1950 and 1955, "Strangers in Town" and "The Angry Man," are detailed cases of Lew Archer.
Unfortunately, the first 54 pages of this edition are an Introduction and its notes! “Death By Water doesn’t begin until page 59! So, less than two thirds of the book are actually written by Macdonald , just a smidge over 100 pages. Far too little for this reader…
My rating is for the contents of this book, not the writing. I'm must bummed about the fact that two of the three short stories were short versions of novels that I've already read. Kind of like reading the Cliff Notes for each. A nice refresher, but nothing new.
“He was cutting bread,” I said. “He was going to make himself a peanut butter sandwich.”
Unfortunately, the first 54 pages of this edition are an Introduction and its notes! “Death By Water doesn’t begin until page 59! So, less than two thirds of the book are actually written by Macdonald , just a smidge over 100 pages. Far too little for this reader…
My rating is for the contents of this book, not the writing. I'm must bummed about the fact that two of the three short stories were short versions of novels that I've already read. Kind of like reading the Cliff Notes for each. A nice refresher, but nothing new.
“He was cutting bread,” I said. “He was going to make himself a peanut butter sandwich.”
June 28, 2023
This book is for Ross MacDonald/ Lew Archer fans only. The introduction is longer than each of the three short stories but it is interesting in itself, if you want to know more about Kenneth Millar/Ross MacDonald.
The introduction explains that the three “lost” stories were not submitted for publication by Millar because he wanted to use some of the elements of the entire plot in a novel.
The order of the stories lets you see the development of his style, with The Angry Man presenting Lew Archer almost fully formed - this story is a condensed version of The Doomsters novel that came later. The Angry Man also has the theme or corrupt rich families that went through the Archer novels.
The introduction tells about Millar’s wife, Margaret, also a detective fiction writer, and tells about some of Millar’s favorite authors and books - giving me several additions to the list of books I want to read.
The introduction explains that the three “lost” stories were not submitted for publication by Millar because he wanted to use some of the elements of the entire plot in a novel.
The order of the stories lets you see the development of his style, with The Angry Man presenting Lew Archer almost fully formed - this story is a condensed version of The Doomsters novel that came later. The Angry Man also has the theme or corrupt rich families that went through the Archer novels.
The introduction tells about Millar’s wife, Margaret, also a detective fiction writer, and tells about some of Millar’s favorite authors and books - giving me several additions to the list of books I want to read.
April 15, 2019
I see a lot of lower star reviews on Goodreads, I wouldn't let that steer you away from this book. It is more or less a biography of Ross Macdonald, and I found the scholarship remarkable. The editor also did a great job tracking down the three short stories included, and provides the background of why Macdonald didn't publish the works, and how they were later adapted into the full length Archer stories.
December 23, 2023
I took this book with me to the coffee shop this morning, and also Needful Things. My intentions fluctuated - read one short story and then head right into the big novel? Or knock off the trio of tales in Strangers in Town all at one go, and check out Stephen King after dark…? Well, ‘Stephen King after dark’ kind of sells itself - but I had just gone the hardboiled route, big time, with a Mickey Spillane novel; I had been reading more short stories than ever before lately and neglecting big, anchor-weight novels for much of the year; so, a few reasons to just read one Ross Macdonald story. Needful Things also very tempting, sitting there by the coffee cup…
As it turns out, I just could not put aside Strangers in Town until I had devoured all three very entertaining stories and emerged from this a very happy reader. The first story is the weakest, and not because Lew Archer is not present, just a samey predecessor named Joe Rogers. The solution to the mystery was rather simple - and the prose style lacks the panache one expects from Ross Macdonald, if one has mainly read the Lew Archer novels before landing here. But from then on, we get two very satisfying Lew Archer cases…that Ross Macdonald orginally hid away somewhere rather than publish, because he took each premise and stretched it into a great novel. In fact, all three stories bear this distinction.
I got help enjoying these stories, due in part to ass-dragging combined with a form of snobbery. I’ve mainly only read the Lew Archer novels that reading guides and “100 Best” Crime and Mystery lists have told me to read. That means The Blue Hammer, and The Chill - both amazing. I mean, The Blue Hammer! So what I’m saying is, I haven’t read any of the three novels that repeated what is in these three short stories - so, no feeling of deja vu sprinkled with boredom; no notion that any short story here is a pale thing compared to longer works with snazzier style and cool add-on flourishes from a writer performing at his peak…just three solid quickies standing on their own merits. Of course, I’m not going to rush out and read The Doomsters, or whatever, so hopefully I can forget plot details I would surely love to experience all over again later.
If someone decided, somehow, to start with Ross Macdonald by reading Strangers in Town…geez, I wouldn’t recommend it…and yet, there are worse mistakes. It’s almost not a mistake. The two Lew Archer offerings here have enough personality, emotional punch, and clever plotting to please even a casual book-picker with a bad sense of direction. It’s just that yeah, the novels are where it’s at. I mean, even when the issue is that a writer has to keep to a tight word-count in a tale, to get the story accepted by a magazine - then style magicks are clipped, restricted…missing some beautiful words! This does no favours for Lew Archer, among others.
It’s wonderful that these tales finally got published. I say they are not just quaint curiosities. They came with a long Introduction by Tom Nolan, and he’s semi-apologetic about how the contents aren’t quite at the level of excellence fans might want. I’ve been subjected to that song & dance all year in most of the Intros to a slew of Fredric Brown short story collections. Could everyone stop with the apologizing! You went and published this stuff - don’t throw in excuses for what you published, stop making like the stuff sucks! Okay, nobody said ‘sucks’ - but reliable authors with legions of fans don’t need all this apologizing attached to minor works, unpublished works, works that maybe didn’t get spiffed up just right because the author switched to a novel with similar trappings, works that had to fit some magazine’s rules, even works that got cranked out in a rush for quick cash. The talent prevails, or we get to see at delightful half-blossom.
Then again, other than the lowering-of-the-bar shtick, the Introduction to this book is a treat all by itself - full of juicy biographical details, lots of Margaret Millar material of course, and a tendency to make one want to read not only Ross Macdonald novels, but anything that Ross MacDonald loved and was influenced by. Heck, I’ve got a copy of Margaret Millar’s The Iron Gates handy, and have half a mind to tell Stephen King to wait till after one more book. But I won’t. I don’t think. We’ll see. After dark. Iron Gates looks like some prime after-dark stuff, and Nolan pumped it up…
Anyway, I did love the Introduction- and so I forgive its length - but the stories are even better.
As it turns out, I just could not put aside Strangers in Town until I had devoured all three very entertaining stories and emerged from this a very happy reader. The first story is the weakest, and not because Lew Archer is not present, just a samey predecessor named Joe Rogers. The solution to the mystery was rather simple - and the prose style lacks the panache one expects from Ross Macdonald, if one has mainly read the Lew Archer novels before landing here. But from then on, we get two very satisfying Lew Archer cases…that Ross Macdonald orginally hid away somewhere rather than publish, because he took each premise and stretched it into a great novel. In fact, all three stories bear this distinction.
I got help enjoying these stories, due in part to ass-dragging combined with a form of snobbery. I’ve mainly only read the Lew Archer novels that reading guides and “100 Best” Crime and Mystery lists have told me to read. That means The Blue Hammer, and The Chill - both amazing. I mean, The Blue Hammer! So what I’m saying is, I haven’t read any of the three novels that repeated what is in these three short stories - so, no feeling of deja vu sprinkled with boredom; no notion that any short story here is a pale thing compared to longer works with snazzier style and cool add-on flourishes from a writer performing at his peak…just three solid quickies standing on their own merits. Of course, I’m not going to rush out and read The Doomsters, or whatever, so hopefully I can forget plot details I would surely love to experience all over again later.
If someone decided, somehow, to start with Ross Macdonald by reading Strangers in Town…geez, I wouldn’t recommend it…and yet, there are worse mistakes. It’s almost not a mistake. The two Lew Archer offerings here have enough personality, emotional punch, and clever plotting to please even a casual book-picker with a bad sense of direction. It’s just that yeah, the novels are where it’s at. I mean, even when the issue is that a writer has to keep to a tight word-count in a tale, to get the story accepted by a magazine - then style magicks are clipped, restricted…missing some beautiful words! This does no favours for Lew Archer, among others.
It’s wonderful that these tales finally got published. I say they are not just quaint curiosities. They came with a long Introduction by Tom Nolan, and he’s semi-apologetic about how the contents aren’t quite at the level of excellence fans might want. I’ve been subjected to that song & dance all year in most of the Intros to a slew of Fredric Brown short story collections. Could everyone stop with the apologizing! You went and published this stuff - don’t throw in excuses for what you published, stop making like the stuff sucks! Okay, nobody said ‘sucks’ - but reliable authors with legions of fans don’t need all this apologizing attached to minor works, unpublished works, works that maybe didn’t get spiffed up just right because the author switched to a novel with similar trappings, works that had to fit some magazine’s rules, even works that got cranked out in a rush for quick cash. The talent prevails, or we get to see at delightful half-blossom.
Then again, other than the lowering-of-the-bar shtick, the Introduction to this book is a treat all by itself - full of juicy biographical details, lots of Margaret Millar material of course, and a tendency to make one want to read not only Ross Macdonald novels, but anything that Ross MacDonald loved and was influenced by. Heck, I’ve got a copy of Margaret Millar’s The Iron Gates handy, and have half a mind to tell Stephen King to wait till after one more book. But I won’t. I don’t think. We’ll see. After dark. Iron Gates looks like some prime after-dark stuff, and Nolan pumped it up…
Anyway, I did love the Introduction- and so I forgive its length - but the stories are even better.
November 30, 2018
As Mr Loaf tells us, 2 outta 3 aint bad.
August 20, 2022
"The Angry Man" - read that one story only - four stars.
November 28, 2024
The first two stories were weak and predictable, but the third was almost up to Macdonald's standards.
October 1, 2014
Getting biographical details on Ross MacDonald, aka: Kenneth Millar, was really fascinating and definitely worth reading. Two of the three stories didn't fall into the same categories though. The short story version of The Doomsters was very strong and interesting to read—especially given that I've read and enjoyed The Doomsters—but the first two short stories were fairly stiff and neither as clever nor well-written as later MacDonald's novels. The dialogue in particular stuck out like a sore thumb.
I'd recommend that only definite Ross MacDonald fans, readers who need to get their hands on anything with his name on it, pick this up. And, even then, only after having finished The Doomsters. That's a novel you wouldn't want to spoil for yourself.
I'd recommend that only definite Ross MacDonald fans, readers who need to get their hands on anything with his name on it, pick this up. And, even then, only after having finished The Doomsters. That's a novel you wouldn't want to spoil for yourself.
June 9, 2015
Three newly discovered mysteries by Ross Macdonald;edited by Tom Nolan.
Obviously a young writer learning his craft. I'll give him a couple more chances to prove he's worth my time.
Obviously a young writer learning his craft. I'll give him a couple more chances to prove he's worth my time.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews