The three roads | Collections | The Huntington

The three roads | Collections | The Huntington

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The doomsters
Rare Books
"When Archer opened the door to the tall young man who was afraid of the light, he was letting the Doomsters in. Who were the Doomsters? Carl certainly knew them--that was why Archer found him on the doorstep in a bad state of exhaustion and desperately in need of help. Zinnie knew them, though you wouldn't expect her to be haunted by memories--or conscience; Zinnie was pseudo-Hollywood, expensive and not very new, but a nice machine for all that. Mildred certainly knew them and that was more understandable, with her grave innocence and the loneliness that made her seem vulnerable. And Dr. Grantland had his fill of them--he was a good doctor suffering from a bad case of lack of integrity. There was the red-headed woman, too, who drank time under the table; she knew them. But Archer didn't, until he got talked into helping Carl, and found himself a lap behind the next murder"--Dust jacket.
636034
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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.
636031
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The chill
Rare Books
"Hired to trace a runaway bride, Lew Archer uncovers a trail of murder that leads half-way across America and twenty years into the past. Beyond that, it need only be said that the story is every bit as exciting, baffling, and ultimately satisfying as would be expected from the author of "The zebra-striped hearse." In the direct line of succession that reaches from Dashiell Hammett to Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald adds, to the crackling dialogue and narrative tightness of his illustrious predecessors, impressive qualities of his own: a depth of psychological understanding, a sureness in handling a wide variety of social milieus, and a dazzling, unpredictable plot"--Half-title verso.
636039
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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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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.
636020
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Blue City
Rare Books
"In 1946, after many years' absence, John Weather returns to Blue City to find his father--the one-time Mayor--had been murdered on the street two years before. For political reasons among the conflicting forces which now rule the place, the murder has been hushed up and the murderer never found. The City as Weather finds it on his return, is one of evil and corruption, and corruption, as he also discovers, is something which once injected into a political organism is bound to spread. And this is what has happened in Blue City which is rotting from the top. It is an ugly City now, too ugly even for the men and women who have made it that way, and its corruption revolts John Weather into action on its own terms. Kenneth Millar writes with uncompromising toughness and spares us no reality. His world is one of brutal values; his people without pity or remorse. But this is not toughness for the sake of toughness. It is a harsh and vivid picture of a brutal side of life, focused before us with pitiless clarity like a sudden light in a shameful room. And in the nakedness of its tearing reality and in a manner which is not easily forgotten, we are faced with the fearful implications of these people's lives, and a lingering disturbance for some sort of truth which they contain"--Dust jacket.
636026