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Read The Far Side Of The Dollar (1996)

The Far Side of the Dollar (1996)

Online Book

Genre
Series
Rating
4.06 of 5 Votes: 1
Your rating
ISBN
0553129147 (ISBN13: 9780679768654)
Language
English
Publisher
vintage

The Far Side Of The Dollar (1996) - Plot & Excerpts

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 book are equally good. In is little wonder the teen escaped; not only he escaped, he also completely disappeared. Trying to avoid the bad publicity the school's principal hired a PI - none other than Lew Archer - to find the runaway. Instead of the teen Archer found a dead body and complete lack of cooperation from all interested parties. The boy was still nowhere to be seen.I gave this novel 3.5 stars, but had to round it down despite the fact that it is much better than my usual 3 star reads; it was still quite a page turner. As a nice bonus it has a very well written teen girl (Stella). Sorry but I will have to shout to emphasize my point here. Dear writers - of romance and any other genre, this is how you write an interesting teen girl in love who is nice and not an extremely selfish person who cares nothing about except her feelings!!! I do believe the art of writing such characters is practically lost in modern literature. Why the low rating in this case? The plot is predictable. I was able to guess the identity of the villain in the second half and only watched the gathering of evidence against him/her as a passive spectator. Ross Macdonald's plots are much more complicated usually. It is nowhere near as gripping as the previous installment of the series. My summary: mild disappointment, but still worth reading.

This is a great Archer novel, and even though I’ve read more than one other Archer book where the seventeen-year-old character happens to run into the couple who gave up a child for adoption seventeen years prior, this one stayed fresh as I was reading. Sure, it’s a little predictable, but the voice was punchy and all the right notes were hit at the right time. An Archer book executed exactly as it should have been. The only weird moments – and this is where I can’t give it five stars – come when Archer seems to be the most rational understander of teenage behavior. As fed-up parents are wondering what to do with these crazy kids (and locking them in a mental institution seems to be their method of first resort), Archer sagely reminds both parent and child that the teenage years are trying for everyone, but it’s important to remember that they pass. Thanks, Lew. Kind of weird of you to say that, but nice all the same.

What do You think about The Far Side Of The Dollar (1996)?

This was headed toward a four, the characters were just not as intriguing as some of the other Archer books (although Stella is one of MacDonald's most endearing personalities) and the plot had some funny coincidences in it that seemed somewhat arbitrary. As a crime novel, first-rate; as an Archer novel... I was thinking that it wasn't one of the best until, BANG!, the plot just tied up in the last 30 pages in a manner so masterful that it would take far to long for me to explain MacDonald's method. I would recommend other Archer stories first, but I don't think I have read an Archer book yet that wouldn't rank as one of the top 100 crime novels I have read.
—David

I simply love the way this man writes. Granted, he's glib, and pop, but he's very good at what he does. He nails people: She smiled, and I caught a glimpse of her life’s meaning. She cared for other people. Nobody cared for her.He catches those fleeting but profound emotions:She climbed down the ladder and flitted away through the trees, one of those youngsters who make you feel like apologizing for the world.He can sum up a personality in one line:Daly had the habit of serviceability. “Okay. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”He can observe society from a cynical distance:The crowd of onlookers ... had ... dwindled. There were still a few waiting for something more interesting than their lives to happen.As a detective story, it checks off all the obligatory boxes. Not for everybody, I guess. But I like it.
—Joe

This is a very good book with a desapointing ending. The plot is fast paced, with very interesting points of philosophy in the prose and a lot of twists in the end. If you have already read other Macdonald books, this will look familiar to you. Broken families, a unensolved mistery of the past and a missing teenager looking for his real parents. Just like a lot of other stories of Macdonald, but he has a way of implement the story and putting the words that it's so unique and poetic, that it aways sounds like it's a new plot all over again. I enjoy reading this book, but the ending quite disapointed me. I think Macdonald tried to surprise the reader, and not only it sounded surreal, but made the whole story lost it's sense. Things were lefted unensolved, and the character that was the biggest victim of the plot, suddenly became the villain. Not only it was bad written, but as usual, blame it on the woman. Not the irreponsable and arrogant teenager, or the selfish and greedy husband. Just like in other pretty good novels of Macdonald, in the end he tries to surpreend everyone, and things become too complicated, with too many twists and out of character personas. I recommend this book if you are a Macdonald fan, if you're not, try another one.
—Diego Paim

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