Rare Books
The far side of the dollar
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Sleeping beauty
Rare Books
"His new Lew Archer novel ... plunges Archer into a fascinating to intricate case connected to a disastrous oil spill on the coast of Southern California. It involves him with three generations of the imposing Lennox family whose offshore oil platform has caused the spill; whose young heiress, glimpsed for a haunting moment on the beach--handsome, angry-eyed, clutching an oil-drenched sea bird in her arms--has disappeared. On her trail, Archer finds himself journeying into a horrendous past, into the hidden lives of a family twisted by money, by power, by a ruthless, almost compulsive instinct for infidelity--infidelity between husbands and wives, parents and children, infidelity to friends, dependents, duty and, in a sense, to the earth itself. As Archer moves among these people, among their lies and contradictions; as episodes distant in time are linked--a derelict stranger found dead, a ship destroyed by fire in World War II, a secret case of extortion, a child's long-ago glimpse of violence; as the novel moves to its climactic and complex resolution, the reader is once more held fast by the unique art of Ross Macdonald: crackling suspense rooted in strong perception of reality"--Page [1].
636045
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The underground man
Rare Books
"'The underground man' brings Macdonald's cool, pragmatic detective, Lew Archer, to a tragic fire that ravages a hillside community in Southern California. It enmeshes him in the lives of a group of troubled people searching for happy endings but fatally entangled in a web of murder and extortion stretching back through fifteen years--an angry father whose whole life has been a kind of breakdown, a mother using her son as a scapegoat, a part of alienated adolescents who believe they are rescuing a child from the adult world, and a sad woman living with a dreadful secret. The result is a novel that mingles unfaltering suspense with that extraordinary perception of an American life-style (West Coast Affluent) that is the hallmark of Ross Macdonald"--Page [1].
636044
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Black money
Rare Books
"In what is perhaps his strangest case Lew Archer, the celebrated private-eye, explores the secret life of a rich Californian residential suburb. A beautiful young woman has jilted her fiancé and taken up with a mysterious character who represents himself as a French political refugee. Hired to investigate this man, Archer becomes involved in several murders and a gigantic swindle. Running through the book, as a central theme, is the corrupting influence of the underworld and its money on modern society. "Black money" is the most individual of the brilliant series of novels that have won Ross Macdonald international recognition"--Half-title verso.
636040
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The Galton case
Rare Books
"Why, after twenty years, should the dying Mrs. Galton so suddenly begin trying to find her long-lost (and well lost) son? Why--on the same day--should a hit-and-run killer stab Peter Culligan, the odd servant of the old lady's lawyer? These were the questions which Lew Archer, private investigator, asked himself: dangerous questions, which led him to the discovery of a headless skeleton, and a young man who claimed the Galton fortune. They sent Archer flying from one end of the American continent to the other, and back through a generation in time to the lawless twenties and the notorious Lempi gang. Still the questions leapt at him: is the boy's claim genuine, or is he just a brilliant actor playing for high stakes? What happened to the fabulous Galton rubies which disappeared with the runaway son? What did the dead houseman know about these things? Digging for the answers with his characteristic wariness of the obvious, Lew Archer's pertinacity led his investigations to an intriguing and brilliantly worked-out climax"--Half-title page.
636035
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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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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