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 chose The Chill, a 1964 novel by Ross MacDonald. For one thing, MacDonald is often considered the logical successor to my two favorite p.i. writers, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. For another, I've had The Chill on my wish list and in my book box for some months, so it was time to crack it. I have to admit, I've tried a few Ross MacDonald/Lew Archer stories in the past--The Drowning Pool, which seemed a little odd, The Galton Case, which I don't recall very well, The Zebra-Striped Hearse, which I remember enjoying, and The Far Side of the Dollar. I was a little disappointed with all of these. They lacked the crisp snap of Hammett, and the intoxicating prose of Chandler. (Or is that intoxicated?) They were grey books. Lew Archer was a grey, boring fellow. But what impressed me most after two or three is that in all the books, all the characters Archer came in contact with were all related. At some point in their pasts they all had the same father, and if a younger character was screwing a character of an older generation, chances are the older one was a parent. (If two younger characters were screwing, they were siblings.) But I gave The Chill a fair try, just like I gave the talking-Chihuahua-zombie-p.i.s a chance in the Shamus competition. The first thing I noticed about this book was that night after night, it put me to sleep in a trice, and I'd spend half-an-hour, reading, re-reading, and failing to comprehend whatever page or paragraph I was on. The plot wouldn't have passed muster even with Chandler. Too confusing. Too many characters. And the passage of time between (off-stage) murders was never clear. Would it have been less confusing if it hadn't kept putting me to sleep? Yes, I imagine so. Is that a selling point? No, but in the book's favor, it was light, easy to carry on the Metro, and didn't hurt much when it would fall on my chest. The setting was some melancholy suburban L.A. locale, not well-known enough for me to recognize, but not interesting enough for me to get up and look at my atlas. The characters were melancholy academics, a nice touch, along with So. Cal. shrinks. Archer made intuitive leaps or at least I thought they must be intuitive, because there didn't seem to be enough known about the characters to make deductions. There was little or no evidence about any of the murders. They all occurred in melancholy voids, away from witnesses. I was so unmoved by this book, I had to google it to see why it's so well thought of. I found an excellent blog post by no less a doctor of crime fiction than John Connolly. http://johnconnollybooks.blogspot.com... Imagine my surprise to learn that The Chill takes its structure and plot from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." I didn't see that, but Connolly mentions a "dead pigeon," rather than an albatross. I seem to have missed the dead pigeon, too. (If I read on a Kindle, could I search for "pigeon?")Well, I agree with many of Connolly's comments, but Connolly says "I would describe this book as a 'nearly perfect' crime novel. . . . The Chill is the finest jewel in Macdonald's crown." Some of this is hard to argue. That's Connolly's opinion, and he explains how he came to these conclusions. For me though, The Chill was a crushing disappointment. There was a true paucity of action. Scenes were primarily dialogue, and much of the dialogue was dancing around the truth. It seemed to me hard for the reader to distinguish truth from falsehood, and Archer is a total enigma. There was no way to tell how he was reacting to the dialogue.But the biggest problem for me is my belief that in good detective fiction, change and movement must be manifested in action. I ain't sayin' I need a car chase, but character development must be externalized. There must be sensory details that I the reader can share with the dick. The moment of recognition must be manifested in action. In The Chill, everything was manifested in melancholy.
This is a well crafted mystery novel -- moves right along, providing most of the usual mystery-novel attractions: murders, a male detective, suspicious women who try to seduce him, booze, corrupt cops that are trying to close the case too quickly by pinning it on the wrong suspect, some currupt and elderly very rich people. As an entertainment, it was perfectly fine -- I was engaged and entertained, and couldn't wait to find out the identity of the killer. A page turner. But on the basis of this novel, I would dispute the claim, apparently made frequently, that Ross MacDonald's mysteries are superior to those of Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett. The line is that he's more sophisticated, brings a moral complexity and subtlety to the proceedings that leave his antecedents seeming woefully lacking.Well, I'm not yet a huge fan of Hammett, so I'll sit that round out. But Chandler is in most ways a superior author to MacDonald. As a writer, a much more interesting stylist. And in terms of unfolding a mystery plot -- he uses the pretext of a plot to unfold really amazing scenes. Odd, funny, morally perplexing, vivid. It's not just about finding out who shot the gun -- it's everything that happens along the way that's interesting.Whereas the "The Chill" is more like what i think of as a typical mystery novel. It's really about setting up a puzzle, misleading as you start to understand what's going on. And then that final reveal -- the big surprise: so THAT character was the murderer! Surprise! Okay, well, that's fine, it's entertainment. But it's not that interesting along the way. the writing is straightforward, which is fine, but there's not much interest there. The characters are all pretty thin. The central protagonist is a moral and responsible fellow, a detective named Archer. When he asks people questions, they usually answer them, maybe leaving out one or two answers just to introduce some suspense. And, unlike the detectives in Hammett and Chandler, Archer is pretty faithful to the reader. He doesn't really get too far ahead of us -- keeping secrets from us. Because he's a decent guy I guess. Well, he's a gentler narrator than Marlowe, but on the whole not nearly as interesting or surprising.
What do You think about The Chill (1996)?
And now I understand why those more au fait than Ross McDonald than I, have been heartily recommending that I read ‘The Chill’.This is one of the best detective novels I’ve read (and I really haven’t been a slouch at picking up detective novels). ‘The Chill’ is an absolutely superb mystery tale with real depth and a tonne of atmosphere. There is no higher praise from me than to say it is worthy of Raymond Chandler.Archer is hired – almost as a spontaneous decision – by Alex Kincaid, a young man whose new wife has disappeared on their honeymoon. The wife actually turns out to be easy to find, but Archer’s digging swiftly leads to three murders – two old and one brand new – and Archer finds himself sinking deeper and deeper. This is a mystery which keeps on giving, where twist and turns and red herrings are used so skilfully and artfully. They come about as part of the character, rather than simply through the mechanics of the plot. So it isn’t like Agatha Christie, where the workings are visible and look contrived as a consequence – but a sleek sports car of a thriller which one can only marvel at. I defy anyone to guess whodunit.The fact that Archer is hired on the hoof by someone who has only just learnt of his existence ten minutes before, lends the book something of a fish out of water feel, even as our hero is operating on home turf. It gives the whole piece a disorientating quality, so that everything is that little bit more dangerous. And this is the book of MacDonald’s, of those I’ve read so far, where the fact that Archer is something of a cipher is best used. He’s like a sponge which can absorb the other character’s neurosis and psychosis, encouraging them to spill even more of their deep, dark secrets; but he’s also a mirror which can hold these secrets up to them and let them know who they really are. This is superlative crime fiction. If you like Ross MacDonald, or like Chandler – or enjoy mysteries of any hue – ‘The Chill’ is definitely recommended.
—F.R.
THE CHILL. Ross Macdonald. ****.I read this the first time many, many years ago. Aside from the fact that I couldn’t remember much about the plot, I could remember having difficulty with the plot. This reading confirmed that the plot of this Lew Archer episode was one of the most complex he had ever written. It starts out simply enough: a young man approaches Archer with a problem – his wife has left him and disappeared. He wants Archer to find her and convince her to come back. Sounds simple. The problem does not have a simple solution. The reasons for his wife leaving him involve family history, money, greed, and mental instability. Significantly more dead bodies turn up in this novel than in most other Macdonald’s books. We find more instances of mental instability as a result of both genetics and environment. I still consider the plot as labyrinthine, but this time through I managed to keep it all straight. Once you get to the end, you will look back on this novel and realize that you have read a stellar example of the genre. Many critics of crime novels consider this Macdonald’s best work. Recommended.
—Tony
Pretty damn good! Taut, fast-paced, snappy dialogue, with wisecracks sometimes reminiscent of the 40s noirs, but still modern enough to make you mentally picture Paul Newman or Steve McQueen in the main role instead of Humphrey Bogart. The Dutch essayist Bas Heijne recently touted this as being 'better than Chandler and Hammet', and there's something to that. Chandler could be self-indulgent in his prose and messy in his plots, Hammet may have been important in the shaping of the hard-boiled detective genre but never was its greatest or most entertaining practitioner (it seems to me). This book is entertaining, incredibly fast-paced and so lean and economic in its narrative. No lush descriptions and long musings of the narrator, but many eminently quotable passages nonetheless – effective character descriptions or witty dialogue. Even a hint of poetry here and there. And some stray literary allusions to keep the professors busy, if they want to be. This is as good as pulp fiction gets, for my money. Seems to me he deserves a place in the Library of America. (More so than Goodis, who recently entered that pantheon. Which is nice, as it serves to rekindle interest in his, possibly interesting, work. But what I've read of that so far can't hold a candle to this.)By the way, the denouement (which the reader sees coming just a few pages ahead of the narrator-detective, I think – at least I did) is as gothic/victorian as they come. The work and the writing are resolutely contemporary, but the ending is pure 19th century melodrama. Very interesting.A few quotes, to give some impression of his laconic-ironic style:The architecture of her face had collapsed under the weight of her flesh and years. Still, her black eyes were alert, like unexpected animal or bird life in the ruins of a building.There were mottoes on the walls instead of pictures, and one of them brought back with a rush and a pang my grandmother's house in Martinez. It said: 'He is the Silent Listener at Every Conversation.' My grandmother had hand-embroidered the same motto and hung it in her bedroom. She always whispered.Somebody has to assume responsibility. There's a lot of it floating around loose at the moment. You can't avoid it by crawling into a hole and pulling the hole in after you.Kincaid was a frightened man who valued his status the way some previous generatiosn valued their souls.She explained about the brilliant ideas Jud was always hatching. The one I liked best was a plan for a condensed version of the Bible, with all the offensive passages removed.I walked on to the next corner, sat on a bench at a bus stop, and read in my new book about Heraclitus. All things flow like a river, he said; nothing abides. Parmenides, on the other hand, believed that nothing ever changed, it only seemed to. Both views appealed to me.
—Frank
