Rare Books
Self-portrait : ceaselessly into the past
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Self-portrait : ceaselessly into the past
Rare Books
Macdonald fans and others interested in detective fiction will find this worthwhile browsing. In a number of the essays Macdonald, a.k.a. Kenneth Millar, sketches in his basic life history: his Scots-Canadian newspapering ancestors; meeting his wife Margaret; and, above all, his absent, loved/hated father--the source of the Oedipal trauma that led to his "breakthrough" novel, The Galton Case. Three essays are devoted to one of Macdonald's lifelong passions, ecologic conservation. The rest of the book is devoted to writers and writing. The topics addressed include: the history of the American crime novel starting with Poe, the function crime fiction fulfills to society, the autobiographical elements in his Lew Archer character, an analysis of Hammett's Sam Spade as he appears in the Maltese Falcon and the critical importance of narrative unity in crime novels. He defends the literary place of the detective novel, declaring his longtime passion for the Gothic tradition. He pays homage to Hammett, Chandler, Greene, Kenneth Fearing, and others.
636019
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The goodbye look
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"In this new novel, Macdonald's famous non-hero private eye Lew Archer ... picks his way through the overheated and explosive mazes of a wealthy family's long hidden secrets. A lost heirloom, a murder that breeds more murder, a boy's life poisoned by a money-crime committed before he was born--these are the elements of "The goodbye look." It is Ross Macdonald at his unnerving best: a novel at once brilliantly perceptive of the world it anatomises--the freeway culture of Southern California--and from first to last unfaltering in its dramatic excitement and suspense"--Page [1].
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The ivory grin
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"'The ivory grin' features private detective Lew Archer again and even Lew finds the job pretty tough, especially since his original assignment petered out early on when the girl he was hired to trail had her throat cut. Lew, however, needed money and he soon discovered enough of the ramifications to make sure of an adequate return if he solved the problem--which, by then, had become a puzzle he couldn't resist anyway. But Death grinned in more ways than one before he got to the root of it all"--Half-title verso.
636030
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The instant enemy
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"Davy's note to himself read: 1. Don't drive cars. 2. Don't drink alcoholic beverages. 3. Don't stay up too late--the night is the bad time. 4. Don't frequent crummy joints. 5. Don't make friends without careful investigation. 6. Don't use dirty language. 7. Don't use "ain't" and other vulgarisms. 8. Don't sit around and brood about the past. 9. Don't hit people. 10. Don't get mad and be an instant enemy. "You see what kind of boy he is?" Laurel said at my shoulder. "A real trier." So Davy tried, but his exertions did not result in tranquility and peaceful order. He was deeply compromised with the young girl, Sandy Sebastian, and with the circumstances that led up to her disappearance. Lew Archer, the famous detective of all Ross Macdonald's novels, was employed to find Sandy: a commission which led him to Davy, and to a family history loaded with crime and melodrama, starting far back in the past: a long violent chronicle of betrayals, deceptions and brutality which did not stop at murder"--Page [1].
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Experience with evil
Rare Books
"John Ross Macdonald has four thrillers to his credit, and the word is used advisedly. Between his first, "The moving target," and his fourth, "The ivory grin," he has been called a new Dashiell Hammett, a new Raymond Chandler--take your choice. His latest story shows that he is no one's shadow; a new detective, a new style prove his vigorous individuality. The 'evil' looked like a simple, if unpleasant, case of kidnapping. But the kidnapping was only the outward manifestation of evil, like the eruption of a boil on a fair skin. And Howard Cross, who was morally responsible for the man who drove the boy away, spent the most crowded twenty-four hours of his life digging deeper and deeper to get at the root of the trouble, to justify his faith in the man. The true cause of it all lay buried in the past, overshadowed by the corruption it spawned, like a microscopic germ poisoning the whole body. Howard's hectic search for it seemed to lead to the one course he did not want to travel but he followed it through to a solution which, though completely logical, will surprise the experienced thriller reader"--Dust jacket.
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