The doomsters | Collections | The Huntington

The doomsters | Collections | The Huntington

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Find a victim
Rare Books
"'He was the ghastliest hitch-hiker who ever thumbed me,' says Archer, recalling how it all started. And by the time the man was stowed into Archer's car so much blood had been pumped out of the round hole in his chest that the body was almost lifeless. By the time he reached hospital there was no life at all. But on the way, Archer had stopped for help at Kerrigan's motel, and his reception there didn't come up to what a good Samaritan might except. Archer, who had no business in this little desert town and didn't know a single soul living--or dying--in it, had to postpone his journey to Sacramento to give evidence at the inquest. And being Archer, he didn't spend the time sitting in a hotel bedroom; though he would have been a lot more comfortable if he had, because there was precious little time for sleep once he started finding out why that body had a hole in it"--Dust jacket.
636032
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The instant enemy
Rare Books
"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].
636042
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The moving target
Rare Books
"The Sampson family made their money in the Texas oil fields and spent it on the California coast. There was still plenty of it left when Ralph Sampson disappeared. Which is why Arless was called in by Mrs. Sampson, a paralysed blonde who had bad dreams, and by Albert Graves who held Sampson's power of attorney. The trail that Arless followed took him down through the seven circles of California society. For Sampson had mixed with thieves and murderers, a cult of "sun-worshippers", a silent-movie star in the last stages of degradation and a boogie pianist who had served her time. In company like that, kidnapping could be the least of anyone's troubles, and so Arless believed until he actually found Sampson and realised who was guilty. But this was not before he had seen some plain and fancy evil, solved a series of violent crimes, and handed out some rough poetic justice"--Dust jacket.
636028
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The barbarous coast
Rare Books
"Though Lew Archer was called to the exclusive beach-side Channel Club in Malibu to save the club manager from a dangerously angry husband, he soon discovered that the club swimming pool was the depository for a lot of dirty linen. The angry young husband's wife, Hester, had recently been an exhibition diver at the pool; now she was missing. Two years before, her eighteen-year-old predecessor, Gabrielle, had been found dead early one morning on the adjoining beach. Looking for Hester, Lew Archer found the mystery of Gabrielle's death constantly obtruding. He also found himself up against a number of unpleasant characters who disliked his interest in both the missing girl and the dead one. Fast, tough and exciting, this story is John Ross Macdonald at this punch-packed best; if you read mysteries as a sedative, keep away from this one"--Dust jacket.
636033
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The ivory grin
Rare Books
"'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 goodbye look
Rare Books
"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].
636043