In this intricately mapped detective novel, Macdonald’s ex-cop P.I. Lew Archer finds himself investigating three murders, committed at ten-year intervals and in multiple states. The interconnected nature of the killings and of the cast of characters speak to an expert at plotting out a story, while the nearly endless series of reversals and revelations speak to the imagination and wit of Macdonald, an author who deserves the same status as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Accosted right outside a courtroom where his testimony has just helped […]
I Ain’t No Senator’s Son
When an escapee from the state mental hospital knocks on his door late at night, divorced ex-cop Lew Archer finds himself suddenly entangled in a long-running family drama. Carl Hallman is the scion of a powerful state senator, locked up because he blamed himself for the deaths of his mother and father. When Archer convinces Hallman to turn himself in, the detective’s sense of curiosity gets the better of him, and when he asks one question he finds himself knocked out on the floor and […]
Blondes, Boxers, and Dead Bodies
Did you ever hear the Steve Goodman song, “You Never Even Called Me By My Name”? (A more popular version was recorded by David Allan Coe.) It’s subtitle is “The Perfect Country and Western Song” because it was a joking attempt by Goodman and his co-writer John Prine to squeeze every stereotypical feature of country-western music into just one song. In one of the final verses Goodman, responding to Coe’s complaints about what has been left out, empties the bucket in a ridiculous fashion just […]