Read Series: Lew Archer
by Author Ross Macdonald
The Instant Enemy (1993)
I don’t trust people who say they like mysteries. They seem to read for different reasons than me, not better or worse, I guess, but they’re a different species and I don’t know what to say to them. I picture grey-haired cat ladies with Agatha Christie fixations or overweight insurance salesmen...
The Chill (1996)
So what did I read to decompress from 26 Shamus entries? I thought a quality private eye book would be a good idea. In addition to freeing me up to enjoy P.I. fiction again, it would be a "control" of sorts, to tell me if I was too harsh on the bad Shamuses, or too forgiving of bad writers. I ch...
The Wycherly Woman (1998)
A rich guy's daughter went missing for some time - she practically disappeared from the face of the Earth. After two months her father realized something is off and hired Lew Archer to find her. One of his main conditions for the search: Archer should not try to get in touch with his ex-wife and ...
The Blue Hammer (1976)
Yesterday I got so sick of that stupid Seth Rogen superhero movie trailer that I turned to my ladycakes and said, "I would honestly like to smash that Green Hornet with a Blue Hammer." Inasmuch as I know how unoriginal I am, I was sure that image---the cobalt ballpeen (my high-school nickname, bt...
The Doomsters (2007)
Something Archer and Philip Marlowe have in common is that they display the “wary good humour of men whose calling is death”. Okay, that description actually appears in this book attached to the otherwise inconsequential character of the deputy coroner, but I think it’s apt for both these Califor...
The Drowning Pool (1996)
Ross Macdonald's reputation is that he took the noirish, hardboiled private detective story pioneered by Dashiel Hammett and refined by Raymond Chandler, to psychological depths they only hinted at. A Euripides to their Aeschylus and Sophocles, as it were. If that's true, then that transformation...
The Barbarous Coast (1990)
She said surprisingly, in a voice as thin as a flute. "Are you a good man?""I like to think so," but her candor stopped me. "No," I said, "I'm not. I keep trying when I remember to, but it keeps getting tougher every year. Like trying to chin yourself with one hand. You can practice on and off al...
Find a Victim (2001)
I think anyone who likes good writing should read Macdonald. Like Chandler, in particular, it really doesn't matter "who dunnit" as the interaction of his characters within their milieu.This novel is fairly early Macdonald where he was still developing his style. His later works are considered mo...
The Zebra-Striped Hearse (1998)
Ο Ross Macdonald κλείνει τον κύκλο των μεγάλων κλασσικών του noir μυθιστορήματος, πίσω από τον Hammett και τον Chandler. Πίσω, αλλά όχι σε μεγάλη απόσταση. Βασικός κληρονόμος και συνεχιστής του αμερικάνικου μεταπολεμικού hardboiled, δημιούργησε τον μοναδικό Λιου Άρτσερ, έναν κουλ, σκληρό και όμορ...
The Goodbye Look (2000)
All of the Lew Archer mysteries by Ross Macdonald are very good, and all but two or three are excellent. This one is in the top three of four, which means it is one of the best mystery novels ever written, and beyond that, it is an excellent novel, period. As always with Lew Archer, there is pr...
The Underground Man (1996)
All of the Lew Archer mysteries by Ross Macdonald are very good, and all but two or three are excellent. This one is in the top seven or eight, which means it is one of the best mystery novels ever written, and beyond that, it is an excellent novel, period. As always with Lew Archer, there is p...
Black Money (1996)
"Βρώμικο χρήμα", εκδόσεις ΒΙΠΕΡ.Αυτό είναι το τρίτο βιβλίο του Ρος Μακντόναλντ που διαβάζω και ήταν στο ίδιο υψηλό επίπεδο με τα δυο προηγούμενα. Ο Ρος Μακντόναλντ είναι μέσα στους δυο αγαπημένους μου συγγραφείς αστυνομικών νουάρ μυθιστορημάτων πλέον, μετά βέβαια από τον μετρ του είδους Ρέιμοντ Τ...
The Moving Target (1998)
I’d never read any Ross MacDonald, but a recent article in The Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/01/ross-macdonald-crime-novelstext piqued my interest.Once upon a time he was apparently ranked as part of ‘The Holy Trinity’ of crime writers alongside Hammett and Chandler. Having ...
The Galton Case (1996)
Macdonald, Ross. THE GALTON CASE. (1959). ****.tI recently came across a list compiled by John Connolly and Declan Hughes entitled: “Ten Crime Novels You Must Read Before You Die” (or something like that). These are both fine writers and I was interested to see what they had come up with. t...
The Far Side of the Dollar (1996)
A teen guy was brought to an exclusive reform school which was not nice by any stretch of imagination. It strongly reminded me of the following:If you do not know where the image comes from, shame on you: go read the book or watch the movie; this is one of the rarest occasions where the movie and...
The Way Some People Die (2007)
Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/un-momento-...El género que, probablemente, más me gusta es la novela policíaca, en todas sus vertientes, que las hay variadas: desde la típica hardboiled en su parte más negra, pasando por las tradicionales policíacas de detectives o los thrillers, hasta ll...
The Ivory Grin (2007)
A wealthy-looking woman came to hire Lew Archer to find her missing maid who supposedly stole some of her jewelry. She sounded fishy for everybody with intellect higher than that of a six-year-old child, so Archer had his reservations about taking the assignment, but it sounded simple and harmles...