A wealthy-looking woman came to hire Lew Archer to find her missing maid who supposedly stole some of her jewelry. She sounded fishy for everybody with intellect higher than that of a six-year-old child, so Archer had his reservations about taking the assignment, but it sounded simple and harmles...
Πρώτη ιστορία του Ρος Μακντόναλντ που διαβάζω στην οποία δεν συμμετέχει ο ιδιωτικός ντετέκτιβ Λιου Άρτσερ, παρόλα αυτά το επίπεδο είναι το ίδιο υψηλό και, μάλιστα, παρατήρησα ότι σαν ιστορία είναι πιο μαύρη και σκληρή από αυτές με τον Άρτσερ. Πρωταγωνιστής και αφηγητής είναι ο νεαρός Τζον Γουέδερ...
Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/un-momento-...El género que, probablemente, más me gusta es la novela policíaca, en todas sus vertientes, que las hay variadas: desde la típica hardboiled en su parte más negra, pasando por las tradicionales policíacas de detectives o los thrillers, hasta ll...
A teen guy was brought to an exclusive reform school which was not nice by any stretch of imagination. It strongly reminded me of the following:If you do not know where the image comes from, shame on you: go read the book or watch the movie; this is one of the rarest occasions where the movie and...
Macdonald, Ross. THE GALTON CASE. (1959). ****.tI recently came across a list compiled by John Connolly and Declan Hughes entitled: “Ten Crime Novels You Must Read Before You Die” (or something like that). These are both fine writers and I was interested to see what they had come up with. t...
I’d never read any Ross MacDonald, but a recent article in The Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/01/ross-macdonald-crime-novelstext piqued my interest.Once upon a time he was apparently ranked as part of ‘The Holy Trinity’ of crime writers alongside Hammett and Chandler. Having ...
"Βρώμικο χρήμα", εκδόσεις ΒΙΠΕΡ.Αυτό είναι το τρίτο βιβλίο του Ρος Μακντόναλντ που διαβάζω και ήταν στο ίδιο υψηλό επίπεδο με τα δυο προηγούμενα. Ο Ρος Μακντόναλντ είναι μέσα στους δυο αγαπημένους μου συγγραφείς αστυνομικών νουάρ μυθιστορημάτων πλέον, μετά βέβαια από τον μετρ του είδους Ρέιμοντ Τ...
All of the Lew Archer mysteries by Ross Macdonald are very good, and all but two or three are excellent. This one is in the top seven or eight, which means it is one of the best mystery novels ever written, and beyond that, it is an excellent novel, period. As always with Lew Archer, there is p...
All of the Lew Archer mysteries by Ross Macdonald are very good, and all but two or three are excellent. This one is in the top three of four, which means it is one of the best mystery novels ever written, and beyond that, it is an excellent novel, period. As always with Lew Archer, there is pr...
Ο Ross Macdonald κλείνει τον κύκλο των μεγάλων κλασσικών του noir μυθιστορήματος, πίσω από τον Hammett και τον Chandler. Πίσω, αλλά όχι σε μεγάλη απόσταση. Βασικός κληρονόμος και συνεχιστής του αμερικάνικου μεταπολεμικού hardboiled, δημιούργησε τον μοναδικό Λιου Άρτσερ, έναν κουλ, σκληρό και όμορ...
I think anyone who likes good writing should read Macdonald. Like Chandler, in particular, it really doesn't matter "who dunnit" as the interaction of his characters within their milieu.This novel is fairly early Macdonald where he was still developing his style. His later works are considered mo...
She said surprisingly, in a voice as thin as a flute. "Are you a good man?""I like to think so," but her candor stopped me. "No," I said, "I'm not. I keep trying when I remember to, but it keeps getting tougher every year. Like trying to chin yourself with one hand. You can practice on and off al...
Ross Macdonald's reputation is that he took the noirish, hardboiled private detective story pioneered by Dashiel Hammett and refined by Raymond Chandler, to psychological depths they only hinted at. A Euripides to their Aeschylus and Sophocles, as it were. If that's true, then that transformation...
Out of the two post-war heirs to Raymond Chandler's title as master of the American hardboiled detective novel, it was Mickey Spillane who conquered the bestseller lists but Ross Macdonald whom the academic literates embraced. It's not difficult to see why even from this anthology of early short ...
This is actually among my favorite books by Ross Macdonald, which I did not expect at all. It had all of the usual elements of his writing: family disfunction, social issues, robbery and murder, but it was also different in a number of ways-good ways.The protagonist was a married lawyer of Scand...
Something Archer and Philip Marlowe have in common is that they display the “wary good humour of men whose calling is death”. Okay, that description actually appears in this book attached to the otherwise inconsequential character of the deputy coroner, but I think it’s apt for both these Califor...
Yesterday I got so sick of that stupid Seth Rogen superhero movie trailer that I turned to my ladycakes and said, "I would honestly like to smash that Green Hornet with a Blue Hammer." Inasmuch as I know how unoriginal I am, I was sure that image---the cobalt ballpeen (my high-school nickname, bt...
A rich guy's daughter went missing for some time - she practically disappeared from the face of the Earth. After two months her father realized something is off and hired Lew Archer to find her. One of his main conditions for the search: Archer should not try to get in touch with his ex-wife and ...
So what did I read to decompress from 26 Shamus entries? I thought a quality private eye book would be a good idea. In addition to freeing me up to enjoy P.I. fiction again, it would be a "control" of sorts, to tell me if I was too harsh on the bad Shamuses, or too forgiving of bad writers. I ch...
I don’t trust people who say they like mysteries. They seem to read for different reasons than me, not better or worse, I guess, but they’re a different species and I don’t know what to say to them. I picture grey-haired cat ladies with Agatha Christie fixations or overweight insurance salesmen...
It's not Lew Archer this time, it's Lt. Sam Drake, U. S. Navy. After spending months at sea, Sam attends a party in Honolulu with his friend and fellow officer, Eric. Sam's not looking for love but he meets a beautiful tall blonde working woman, Mary. Although Eric is married with a wife in De...
Peter Colton was at the flat-topped desk in his office. He had been my colonel in Intelligence. When I opened the ground-glass door he glanced up sharply from a pile of police reports, then lowered his eyes immediately to show that I wasn’t welcome. He was a senior investigator in the D. A.‘s off...
When the lights and noises faded down the track into darkness and silence, I had a momentary childish wish to be on the train, headed for Chicago and points west. Then anger came back and took hold of me again, and I started towards McKinley Hall to meet Alec Judd. He knew more about the Schneide...
It had been there as long as I could remember. Its four-story façade stood in the diluted sunlight like an old woman with a powder-caked face surprised by morning. I found the manager’s apartment, Number 1 on the ground floor, and rang the bell. A middle-aged man in his shirt sleeves came to the ...
I introduced her to Forest. “Has Mrs. Johnson gone home?” “Yes,” she said. “I promised to drive out after her. Helen shouldn’t be alone, and she doesn’t seem to have any friends or relatives available.” “You’re a dutiful girl.” She flinched at the compliment, and bit her lower lip. “I have nothin...
Against their large darkness and the larger darkness of the sky, the lights on the main street flung a meretricious challenge. It was like a hundred other hinterland main streets, with its chain stores and clothing stores closed for the night, restaurants and bars and movie houses sti...