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Lew Archer #10
The Zebra-Striped Hearse
Strictly speaking, Lew Archer is only supposed to dig up the dirt on a rich man's suspicious soon-to-be son-in-law. But in no time at all Archer is following a trail of corpses from the citrus belt to Mazatlan. And then there is the zebra-striped hearse and its crew of beautiful, sunburned surfers, whose path seems to keep crossing the son-in-law's--and Archer's--in a powerful, fast-paced novel of murder on the California coast.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
About the author
Ross Macdonald
175 books754 followersRoss Macdonald is the pseudonym of the American-Canadian writer of crime fiction Kenneth Millar. He is best known for his series of hardboiled novels set in southern California and featuring private detective Lew Archer.
Millar was born in Los Gatos, California, and raised in his parents' native Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, where he started college. When his father abandoned his family unexpectedly, Macdonald lived with his mother and various relatives, moving several times by his sixteenth year. The prominence of broken homes and domestic problems in his fiction has its roots in his youth.
In Canada, he met and married Margaret Sturm (Margaret Millar)in 1938. They had a daughter, Linda, who died in 1970.
He began his career writing stories for pulp magazines. Millar attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a Phi Beta Kappa key and a Ph.D. in literature. While doing graduate study, he completed his first novel, The Dark Tunnel, in 1944. At this time, he wrote under the name John Macdonald, in order to avoid confusion with his wife, who was achieving her own success writing as Margaret Millar. He then changed briefly to John Ross Macdonald before settling on Ross Macdonald, in order to avoid mixups with contemporary John D. MacDonald. After serving at sea as a naval communications officer from 1944 to 1946, he returned to Michigan, where he obtained his Ph.D. degree.
Macdonald's popular detective Lew Archer derives his name from Sam Spade's partner, Miles Archer, and from Lew Wallace, author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Macdonald first introduced the tough but humane private eye in the 1946 short story Find the Woman. A full-length novel, The Moving Target, followed in 1949. This novel (the first in a series of eighteen) would become the basis for the 1966 Paul Newman film Harper. In the early 1950s, he returned to California, settling for some thirty years in Santa Barbara, the area where most of his books were set. The very successful Lew Archer series, including bestsellers The Goodbye Look, The Underground Man, and Sleeping Beauty, concluded with The Blue Hammer in 1976.
Macdonald died of Alzheimer's disease in Santa Barbara, California.
Macdonald is the primary heir to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler as the master of American hardboiled mysteries. His writing built on the pithy style of his predecessors by adding psychological depth and insights into the motivations of his characters. Macdonald's plots were complicated, and often turned on Archer's unearthing family secrets of his clients and of the criminals who victimized them. Lost or wayward sons and daughters were a theme common to many of the novels. Macdonald deftly combined the two sides of the mystery genre, the "whodunit" and the psychological thriller. Even his regular readers seldom saw a Macdonald denouement coming.
Millar was born in Los Gatos, California, and raised in his parents' native Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, where he started college. When his father abandoned his family unexpectedly, Macdonald lived with his mother and various relatives, moving several times by his sixteenth year. The prominence of broken homes and domestic problems in his fiction has its roots in his youth.
In Canada, he met and married Margaret Sturm (Margaret Millar)in 1938. They had a daughter, Linda, who died in 1970.
He began his career writing stories for pulp magazines. Millar attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a Phi Beta Kappa key and a Ph.D. in literature. While doing graduate study, he completed his first novel, The Dark Tunnel, in 1944. At this time, he wrote under the name John Macdonald, in order to avoid confusion with his wife, who was achieving her own success writing as Margaret Millar. He then changed briefly to John Ross Macdonald before settling on Ross Macdonald, in order to avoid mixups with contemporary John D. MacDonald. After serving at sea as a naval communications officer from 1944 to 1946, he returned to Michigan, where he obtained his Ph.D. degree.
Macdonald's popular detective Lew Archer derives his name from Sam Spade's partner, Miles Archer, and from Lew Wallace, author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Macdonald first introduced the tough but humane private eye in the 1946 short story Find the Woman. A full-length novel, The Moving Target, followed in 1949. This novel (the first in a series of eighteen) would become the basis for the 1966 Paul Newman film Harper. In the early 1950s, he returned to California, settling for some thirty years in Santa Barbara, the area where most of his books were set. The very successful Lew Archer series, including bestsellers The Goodbye Look, The Underground Man, and Sleeping Beauty, concluded with The Blue Hammer in 1976.
Macdonald died of Alzheimer's disease in Santa Barbara, California.
Macdonald is the primary heir to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler as the master of American hardboiled mysteries. His writing built on the pithy style of his predecessors by adding psychological depth and insights into the motivations of his characters. Macdonald's plots were complicated, and often turned on Archer's unearthing family secrets of his clients and of the criminals who victimized them. Lost or wayward sons and daughters were a theme common to many of the novels. Macdonald deftly combined the two sides of the mystery genre, the "whodunit" and the psychological thriller. Even his regular readers seldom saw a Macdonald denouement coming.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 216 reviews
January 26, 2020
Loved this book. I think it is one of his best. This book is 218 pages but seems twice that long and not in a bad way. The prose is dense and yet economic not to be brushed over lightly but read slowly and savored. I am a big fan of Raymond Chandler and always will be but more and more I think Ross MacDonald might have a leg up. Chandler books are wondrous marvels of mystery writing. Ross MacDonald doesn’t quite meet that same level. But what MacDonald does have on Chandler is wider body of work that is consistent in quality.
The Zebra Striped Hearse is filled with great turns of phrase, unique descriptions and character perspective. And I did not guess who did the killings nor did I predict the wonderful twist at the end. I highly recommend this book.
David Putnam Author of the Bruno Johnson series.
The Zebra Striped Hearse is filled with great turns of phrase, unique descriptions and character perspective. And I did not guess who did the killings nor did I predict the wonderful twist at the end. I highly recommend this book.
David Putnam Author of the Bruno Johnson series.
May 4, 2020
The Zebra-Striped Hearse is a well-plotted novel, with a few surprising twists and turns. But, unlike most later Archers, although it is an effective mystery, it is not a superior one.
The mediocre mystery features a victim and a half-dozen suspects, each equipped with a shiny red herring. The effective mystery--like Hearse--features two distinct stories: one narrative about the kind of crime we think we are investigating, and one about the kind of crime we discover at story's end. In the truly exceptional mystery, the first story is almost as satisfying as the second, and the reader is surprised—and pleased—when he is compelled to exchange one set of assumptions for another.
And that is the problem with The Zebra-Striped Hearse. Its development is casual, almost rambling, and the provisional solution--the first story it suggests, the supposed murderer's character and motivations--is not very interesting in itself. The last third of the book, when the second story kicks in, is much better, but I found it a bit of a chore to hang on until then.
The Lew Archer character is fully formed here, however, and his detached yet compassionate voice make "The Zebra-Striped Hearse" somewhat more than merely an effective entertainment.
January 15, 2020
Devastating tale of betrayals in the tenth entry in the Lew Archer series by Ross Macdonald.
This is one of the most solidly written, truly surprising mysteries Macdonald had written up to this point.
The last 40 to 50 pages are so emotionally charged they're almost too brutal on the reader.
For once it's nice that a Macdonald novel is populated with numerous characters with so many assorted motives for the four to five murders that occur throughout the novel. The reader is left virtually hanging to every line in the final chapters.
It's a first class murder mystery and could have easily been a stand-alone.
If you've never read a "Lew Archer" entry, this would be a great novel to start with. We even get another recap of Archer's earlier doomed marriage.
I never believed way back when I'd originally written Ross Macdonald off as a Raymond Chandler imitator after reading an anthology of his earliest "Lew Archer" short stories and his first "Archer" novel that I would become the fan of his that I am today.
If you're interested in reading a moving, deeply engaging murder mystery that doesn't involve a glib, wise-cracking private eye, then this is a novel for you.
Highest Recommendation!
This is one of the most solidly written, truly surprising mysteries Macdonald had written up to this point.
The last 40 to 50 pages are so emotionally charged they're almost too brutal on the reader.
For once it's nice that a Macdonald novel is populated with numerous characters with so many assorted motives for the four to five murders that occur throughout the novel. The reader is left virtually hanging to every line in the final chapters.
It's a first class murder mystery and could have easily been a stand-alone.
If you've never read a "Lew Archer" entry, this would be a great novel to start with. We even get another recap of Archer's earlier doomed marriage.
I never believed way back when I'd originally written Ross Macdonald off as a Raymond Chandler imitator after reading an anthology of his earliest "Lew Archer" short stories and his first "Archer" novel that I would become the fan of his that I am today.
If you're interested in reading a moving, deeply engaging murder mystery that doesn't involve a glib, wise-cracking private eye, then this is a novel for you.
Highest Recommendation!
May 12, 2023
05/2022
The reason that my review of this, 8 years ago, was so sparse and simply complimentary, was I couldn't even put into words why The Zebra Striped Hearse is so amazingly good. The mystery, as always with MacDonald (Millar) is fully satisfying, revealed in layers of interesting detail and suspicion and revelation til it comes to a very satisfying conclusion.
08/14
Ross Macdonald's mysteries are always so satisfying I'm tempted to call him the best. This one is from 1961.
The reason that my review of this, 8 years ago, was so sparse and simply complimentary, was I couldn't even put into words why The Zebra Striped Hearse is so amazingly good. The mystery, as always with MacDonald (Millar) is fully satisfying, revealed in layers of interesting detail and suspicion and revelation til it comes to a very satisfying conclusion.
08/14
Ross Macdonald's mysteries are always so satisfying I'm tempted to call him the best. This one is from 1961.
February 16, 2019
A very complex, well-plotted noir. It's unfortunate that Macdonald's hero, Lew Archer, is so dry and pedestrian. He has morals and a sense of justice, but somehow seems only peripherally involved in his own actions. The prose is fine, but only momentarily leaps into art, as in the short quotes below.
Another failing here is that almost all the action has already happened in the past, or somewhere other than for Archer to witness. Only a few of the many characters are more than cardboard throw-always, sadly.
Much of the dialogue seems unnecessary, and little of it expands the characters' personae.
I must confess I read two other Macdonald noirs, and was not impressed at all, although this was far superior. Raymond Chandler exhibits far more style and presence in Marlowe, and humour, too.
The plot here reminded me of a kind of mashup of Chandler's 4-star The Long Goodbye and his very best, the 5-star The Lady in the Lake (my review), only with far less panache.
Although I "solved" the mystery (wrongly) at about 40% through the book, I did find the final twist surprising, and quite sad, but Macdonald failed entirely in conjuring any sense of tragedy.
A very disappointing 3.5 stars.
Quotes:
José darted across the room and said something in Spanish to the long-haired man. He picked up his drink and plodded toward me as if the room was hip-deep in water, or eye-deep in tequila.
-
Meyer’s parting smile was gentle. He didn’t believe in evil. His father had died in Buchenwald, and he didn’t believe in evil.
-
“I used to think we were good friends,” Damis was saying. His eyes were fixed on the hawk, as though it was feeding him his lines by mental telepathy.
-
I got up into the sharp-edged uncertainties of morning and drove across the county to Luna Bay.
-
He picked up his book. It had a picture on the cover of a man riding a horse into a kind of nuclear sunset.
Full size image here
.
Another failing here is that almost all the action has already happened in the past, or somewhere other than for Archer to witness. Only a few of the many characters are more than cardboard throw-always, sadly.
Much of the dialogue seems unnecessary, and little of it expands the characters' personae.
I must confess I read two other Macdonald noirs, and was not impressed at all, although this was far superior. Raymond Chandler exhibits far more style and presence in Marlowe, and humour, too.
The plot here reminded me of a kind of mashup of Chandler's 4-star The Long Goodbye and his very best, the 5-star The Lady in the Lake (my review), only with far less panache.
Although I "solved" the mystery (wrongly) at about 40% through the book, I did find the final twist surprising, and quite sad, but Macdonald failed entirely in conjuring any sense of tragedy.
A very disappointing 3.5 stars.
Quotes:
José darted across the room and said something in Spanish to the long-haired man. He picked up his drink and plodded toward me as if the room was hip-deep in water, or eye-deep in tequila.
-
Meyer’s parting smile was gentle. He didn’t believe in evil. His father had died in Buchenwald, and he didn’t believe in evil.
-
“I used to think we were good friends,” Damis was saying. His eyes were fixed on the hawk, as though it was feeding him his lines by mental telepathy.
-
I got up into the sharp-edged uncertainties of morning and drove across the county to Luna Bay.
-
He picked up his book. It had a picture on the cover of a man riding a horse into a kind of nuclear sunset.
Full size image here
.
December 7, 2020
Macdonald was formulaic in the best way. His old school hard boiled noirs relied on some excellent back and forth dialogue, complex yet satisfying mysteries and character motivation that relied on pop psychology which often sounded pretty credible. There were pitfalls too - characters shoehorned into neat, little cliches or subtle misogyny. But Macdonald got the balance right more often than not and The Zebra-Striped Hearse is a damn good noir.
Sympathetic audience surrogate Lew Archer has to dig up dirt on bohemian artist Burke Damis before he elopes with a rich man's daughter. Archer finds enough dead bodies tied with Damis to send him to the gallows but nothing is as it seems. Macdonald starts with a predictable web of deceit and then washes it away with waves of twists that subvert expectations. His characters were often perverted by the sort of domineering parent or enabling spouse that thrived on toxicity. Incest both psychological and physical were combined with the old backups of money and lust to give layered motivations that at least tried to nudge the mystery into tragedy territory. Here his attempts to do so work better than they did in some of the previous entries (like say #8 - The Galton Case) and the solution was both unpredictable and good.
Macdonald charts the path laid down by Chandler and while his plots are usually better, he does not have Chandler's way with words. So Archer never possesses Marlowe's infectious wit. It makes him effective but never memorable. And as with all crime noirs, most women throw themselves at Archer though he always remains a celibate wise guy. I don't know which one is more forced. It veers into melodrama occasionally but the tough as nails prose rights the ship before it ever gets too corny. The prose excels at packing a lot of atmosphere in minimalist sentences. There is a section set in Mexico over a really long night that is specially good. Archer only seems to meet characters dancing in the twilight between last chance saloon and utter hopelessness.
Macdonald is the third prong of the Holy Trinity of noir authors with Chandler and Hammett. But I don't think he ever was as influential as either of them. He still deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the two of them because he was closer to their level than the second tier pulp authors like Gil Brewer or David Goodis. Macdonald is good, he does most things right but he is never perfect. And that might as well be this book's epitaph. Not perfect but good enough to be a priority for noir fans. Rating - 4/5.
Quotes: a connoisseur of rumors and he lived on these morsels and scraps of other people’s lives Both the quotes describe the same sad man but they could have described two separate people, almost everyone here is broken in one way or the other.
She had the faintly anachronistic airs of a woman who had been good-looking but had found no place to use her looks except the mirror. Even when Archer is being cute, he is hard.
“Do you doubt everything and everyone?" “Practically everything,” I said. “Almost everyone."
Sympathetic audience surrogate Lew Archer has to dig up dirt on bohemian artist Burke Damis before he elopes with a rich man's daughter. Archer finds enough dead bodies tied with Damis to send him to the gallows but nothing is as it seems. Macdonald starts with a predictable web of deceit and then washes it away with waves of twists that subvert expectations. His characters were often perverted by the sort of domineering parent or enabling spouse that thrived on toxicity. Incest both psychological and physical were combined with the old backups of money and lust to give layered motivations that at least tried to nudge the mystery into tragedy territory. Here his attempts to do so work better than they did in some of the previous entries (like say #8 - The Galton Case) and the solution was both unpredictable and good.
Macdonald charts the path laid down by Chandler and while his plots are usually better, he does not have Chandler's way with words. So Archer never possesses Marlowe's infectious wit. It makes him effective but never memorable. And as with all crime noirs, most women throw themselves at Archer though he always remains a celibate wise guy. I don't know which one is more forced. It veers into melodrama occasionally but the tough as nails prose rights the ship before it ever gets too corny. The prose excels at packing a lot of atmosphere in minimalist sentences. There is a section set in Mexico over a really long night that is specially good. Archer only seems to meet characters dancing in the twilight between last chance saloon and utter hopelessness.
Macdonald is the third prong of the Holy Trinity of noir authors with Chandler and Hammett. But I don't think he ever was as influential as either of them. He still deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the two of them because he was closer to their level than the second tier pulp authors like Gil Brewer or David Goodis. Macdonald is good, he does most things right but he is never perfect. And that might as well be this book's epitaph. Not perfect but good enough to be a priority for noir fans. Rating - 4/5.
Quotes: a connoisseur of rumors and he lived on these morsels and scraps of other people’s lives Both the quotes describe the same sad man but they could have described two separate people, almost everyone here is broken in one way or the other.
She had the faintly anachronistic airs of a woman who had been good-looking but had found no place to use her looks except the mirror. Even when Archer is being cute, he is hard.
“Do you doubt everything and everyone?" “Practically everything,” I said. “Almost everyone."
March 28, 2024
To πιο ψυχογραφικό και λιγότερο hard-boiled αστυνομικό μυθιστόρημα του MacDonald (1962), το οποίο αποδίδει μνεία στη 'Μικρή αδερφή', αφού ο 1ος φόνος γίνεται με παγοθραύστη/παγοκόφτη όπως και στο βιβλίο του Τσάντλερ.
Η ιστορία τοποθετείται στις αρχές στις δεκαετίες του '60, και ένα μεγάλο μέρος της κουλτούρας εκείνης της εποχής διαφαίνεται σχεδόν σε όλο το μυθιστόρημα μέσω αναφορών στη νοοτροπία του surfing, στις ελεύθερες κοινωνικές και ερωτικές σχέσεις, στην αντίδραση στο συμβατικό τρόπο ζωής, και στην άνοδο των τεχνών και του καλλιτεχνικού πνεύματος, το οποίο, πλέον, αποτελούσε σημαντικό κομμάτι της καθημερινότητας των Αμερικανών. Επίσης, προβληματίζει το γεγονός ότι ο ντετέκτιβ Λιού Άρτσερ έπρεπε να εμβολιαστεί για να πάει σε μια χώρα όπως το Μεξικό, το οποίο, προφανώς, τότε, κατακλυζόταν από αρρώστιες λόγω δύσκολων συνθηκών διαβίωσης, ενώ εκεί μπορούσε κάποιος να πιει, μόνο, εμφιαλωμένο νερό.
Στα σημεία των καιρών αξίζει να αναφερθούν η ανησυχία για την ενδεχόμενη χρήση της ατομικής βόμβας, η υψηλή φορολογία του εισοδήματος, οι τραυματικές αναμνήσεις Αμερικανών μεταναστών από τα γερμανικά στρατόπεδα συγκέντρωσης, και το ενδιαφέρον των Αμερικανών, πλέον, για την υψηλή αισθητική και την αρχιτεκτονική των σπιτιών και, γενικά, των χώρων.
Στο 1ο μισό, ο MacDonald προσφέρει στιγμές έντονου μυστηρίου που θυμίζουν Άγκαθα Κρίστι ή Φ. Ντ. Τζέιμς, ακολουθώντας τα ίχνη του δολοφόνου από την Καλιφόρνια και το Λος Άντζελες μέχρι το Μεξικό και τη λίμνη Τάχο.
Το 2ο μισό περιέχει στοχευμένες περιγραφές της ψυχοσύνθεσης των ηρώων και των εσωτερικών συγκρούσεών τους, όσο και αρκετά απρόβλεπτα δραματικά γεγονότα που οδηγούν, στο τέλος, σε ένα κρεσέντο συνεχών ανατροπών που, ίσως, μπερδέψουν τον αναγνώστη.
Σύμφωνα με το 'The New Yorker', 'θεωρείται ένα υπόδειγμα της αριστοτεχνικής δουλειάς του συγγραφέα... το βιβλίο έχει ύφος, χαρακτήρα και πολλά πράγματα να πει'.
Βαθμολογία: 4,2/5.
Βαθμολογία απόδοσης της 'ατμόσφαιρας' της δεκαετίας του '60: 4,5/5 ή 9/10.
Υ.Γ.: H έκδοση είναι αρκετά προσεγμένη καί ως μετάφραση καί αισθητικά (η γραμματοσειρά και η δομή των κεφαλαίων). Υπάρχουν σχετικά λίγα λάθη στην εκτύπωση και τη μετάφραση.
Η ιστορία τοποθετείται στις αρχές στις δεκαετίες του '60, και ένα μεγάλο μέρος της κουλτούρας εκείνης της εποχής διαφαίνεται σχεδόν σε όλο το μυθιστόρημα μέσω αναφορών στη νοοτροπία του surfing, στις ελεύθερες κοινωνικές και ερωτικές σχέσεις, στην αντίδραση στο συμβατικό τρόπο ζωής, και στην άνοδο των τεχνών και του καλλιτεχνικού πνεύματος, το οποίο, πλέον, αποτελούσε σημαντικό κομμάτι της καθημερινότητας των Αμερικανών. Επίσης, προβληματίζει το γεγονός ότι ο ντετέκτιβ Λιού Άρτσερ έπρεπε να εμβολιαστεί για να πάει σε μια χώρα όπως το Μεξικό, το οποίο, προφανώς, τότε, κατακλυζόταν από αρρώστιες λόγω δύσκολων συνθηκών διαβίωσης, ενώ εκεί μπορούσε κάποιος να πιει, μόνο, εμφιαλωμένο νερό.
Στα σημεία των καιρών αξίζει να αναφερθούν η ανησυχία για την ενδεχόμενη χρήση της ατομικής βόμβας, η υψηλή φορολογία του εισοδήματος, οι τραυματικές αναμνήσεις Αμερικανών μεταναστών από τα γερμανικά στρατόπεδα συγκέντρωσης, και το ενδιαφέρον των Αμερικανών, πλέον, για την υψηλή αισθητική και την αρχιτεκτονική των σπιτιών και, γενικά, των χώρων.
Στο 1ο μισό, ο MacDonald προσφέρει στιγμές έντονου μυστηρίου που θυμίζουν Άγκαθα Κρίστι ή Φ. Ντ. Τζέιμς, ακολουθώντας τα ίχνη του δολοφόνου από την Καλιφόρνια και το Λος Άντζελες μέχρι το Μεξικό και τη λίμνη Τάχο.
Το 2ο μισό περιέχει στοχευμένες περιγραφές της ψυχοσύνθεσης των ηρώων και των εσωτερικών συγκρούσεών τους, όσο και αρκετά απρόβλεπτα δραματικά γεγονότα που οδηγούν, στο τέλος, σε ένα κρεσέντο συνεχών ανατροπών που, ίσως, μπερδέψουν τον αναγνώστη.
Σύμφωνα με το 'The New Yorker', 'θεωρείται ένα υπόδειγμα της αριστοτεχνικής δουλειάς του συγγραφέα... το βιβλίο έχει ύφος, χαρακτήρα και πολλά πράγματα να πει'.
Βαθμολογία: 4,2/5.
Βαθμολογία απόδοσης της 'ατμόσφαιρας' της δεκαετίας του '60: 4,5/5 ή 9/10.
Υ.Γ.: H έκδοση είναι αρκετά προσεγμένη καί ως μετάφραση καί αισθητικά (η γραμματοσειρά και η δομή των κεφαλαίων). Υπάρχουν σχετικά λίγα λάθη στην εκτύπωση και τη μετάφραση.
August 15, 2023
My favorite joke in this particular Archer entry:
As things slowly begin wrapping up, several of the main characters are allowed a soliloquy, more or less in a row, and more or less in an oddly similar tone. At that point, I was more or less ready to throw in the towel, feeling under the influence of TMI-itis. Sometime before that point as well, I had, surprisingly, figured out the whodunit. (Not only am I not usually that good at guessing, I usually prefer to 'play dumb' when it comes to gumshoe.)
That said... for the bulk of this hearse ride, Macdonald drives in his accustomed manner - though I couldn't help but feel (maybe because of the murders) that the sleaze quotient had been upped. At any rate, the feeling was singularly bleak. (Being more specific would be a spoiler.)
Maybe not among my favorites in the series so far but Macdonald is still in there swinging.
"Too bad you can't keep track of your clients. Have they all flipped?"How you feel about the case that Lew is working on this time may depend on how you feel about its somewhat-protracted conclusion.
"Everybody's doing it. It's the new freedom."
As things slowly begin wrapping up, several of the main characters are allowed a soliloquy, more or less in a row, and more or less in an oddly similar tone. At that point, I was more or less ready to throw in the towel, feeling under the influence of TMI-itis. Sometime before that point as well, I had, surprisingly, figured out the whodunit. (Not only am I not usually that good at guessing, I usually prefer to 'play dumb' when it comes to gumshoe.)
That said... for the bulk of this hearse ride, Macdonald drives in his accustomed manner - though I couldn't help but feel (maybe because of the murders) that the sleaze quotient had been upped. At any rate, the feeling was singularly bleak. (Being more specific would be a spoiler.)
Maybe not among my favorites in the series so far but Macdonald is still in there swinging.
February 14, 2018
First things first, why is it called ‘The Zebra-Striped Hearse’? Yes, Archer does encounter the titular vehicle, but it’s hardly of crucial importance to the story, at best only tangential to the investigation.
So why name the whole book after it?
Of course the most simple and Occam’s Razor answer is that once MacDonald coined the phrase he really, really liked it. But it seems lazy to just stop there, so I’m going to push further. This is noticeably a novel about the generation gap. More than once our narrator reminds us that he’s a man in his forties; that the women he likes are in their forties. It’s quite clear that his attitudes to life are shaped by his age. But this is a book with a lot of young people, and this man in his forties can’t quite get a grip on them, they are a whole other - almost unfathomable - tribe to him. And that I think is what this zebra-striped hearse signifies. It’s an old hearse which has been bought by some beach bums who use it to drive up and down the Californian coastline, lugging their surfboards and occasionally sleeping in it. And to a man in his forties there’s a fundamental lack of respect in taking this vehicle which has a solemn importance, and using it for such a purpose, and even defacing it with zebra-stripes. It’s a sign – as if another sign were needed – that the young are a breed apart, and the older heads, including Archer, are only just managing to keep the world around them together.
Archer is hired by a stern old major to investigate the new boyfriend/fiancé he sees as distinctly unsuitable and unworthy for his darling daughter, in what is, to be frank quite a disappointing mystery.
Firstly, it relies on the huge coincidence of the body of a man Archer is looking for being discovered and dug up the same day as Archer starts investigating his disappearance. Obviously such an old hand as Ross MacDonald knew that coincidences are best avoided in mystery stories, so this feels particularly sloppy.
Elsewhere, well of course it’s the convention in mysteries that characters don’t tell the whole truth even if they’re innocent, as that’s how you extend the story – but here we have a character who obscurants and ducks questions even though it would really be in his best interests to say just tell what he knows.
So bizarrely, for such a master of the genre, we have a mystery which far from a mechanical masterpiece, is instead coughing and spluttering. From that point of view it’s a disappointment, but then this is a book which goes and contains paragraphs like this:
“I went inside the club, where the late afternoon crowd were enjoying themselves. If gamblers can be said to enjoy themselves. They wheedled cards or dice like sinners prying for heaven for one small mercy. They pulled convulsively at the handles of one-armed bandits, as if the machines were computers that would answer all their questions. Am I getting old? Have I failed? Am I immature? Does she love me? Why does he hate me? Hit me jackpot, flood me with life and liberty and happiness.”
And it is just so wonderful and sad and well observed and downbeat funny, that I know that even if MacDonald’s mystery setting skills can occasionally let him down – and here without any doubt they let him down – I'll still keep reading and loving his work because - up there with Chandler - in MacDonald we have the crime author as astute poet.
So why name the whole book after it?
Of course the most simple and Occam’s Razor answer is that once MacDonald coined the phrase he really, really liked it. But it seems lazy to just stop there, so I’m going to push further. This is noticeably a novel about the generation gap. More than once our narrator reminds us that he’s a man in his forties; that the women he likes are in their forties. It’s quite clear that his attitudes to life are shaped by his age. But this is a book with a lot of young people, and this man in his forties can’t quite get a grip on them, they are a whole other - almost unfathomable - tribe to him. And that I think is what this zebra-striped hearse signifies. It’s an old hearse which has been bought by some beach bums who use it to drive up and down the Californian coastline, lugging their surfboards and occasionally sleeping in it. And to a man in his forties there’s a fundamental lack of respect in taking this vehicle which has a solemn importance, and using it for such a purpose, and even defacing it with zebra-stripes. It’s a sign – as if another sign were needed – that the young are a breed apart, and the older heads, including Archer, are only just managing to keep the world around them together.
Archer is hired by a stern old major to investigate the new boyfriend/fiancé he sees as distinctly unsuitable and unworthy for his darling daughter, in what is, to be frank quite a disappointing mystery.
Firstly, it relies on the huge coincidence of the body of a man Archer is looking for being discovered and dug up the same day as Archer starts investigating his disappearance. Obviously such an old hand as Ross MacDonald knew that coincidences are best avoided in mystery stories, so this feels particularly sloppy.
Elsewhere, well of course it’s the convention in mysteries that characters don’t tell the whole truth even if they’re innocent, as that’s how you extend the story – but here we have a character who obscurants and ducks questions even though it would really be in his best interests to say just tell what he knows.
So bizarrely, for such a master of the genre, we have a mystery which far from a mechanical masterpiece, is instead coughing and spluttering. From that point of view it’s a disappointment, but then this is a book which goes and contains paragraphs like this:
“I went inside the club, where the late afternoon crowd were enjoying themselves. If gamblers can be said to enjoy themselves. They wheedled cards or dice like sinners prying for heaven for one small mercy. They pulled convulsively at the handles of one-armed bandits, as if the machines were computers that would answer all their questions. Am I getting old? Have I failed? Am I immature? Does she love me? Why does he hate me? Hit me jackpot, flood me with life and liberty and happiness.”
And it is just so wonderful and sad and well observed and downbeat funny, that I know that even if MacDonald’s mystery setting skills can occasionally let him down – and here without any doubt they let him down – I'll still keep reading and loving his work because - up there with Chandler - in MacDonald we have the crime author as astute poet.
June 23, 2011
I had to pull a momentary rip cord on my Ross Macdonald Chronological Reading Society of One and bail out of The Doomsters for this one. I'll go back and finish it, The Galton Case, and The Wycherly Woman before moving on to The Chill. But it's summer, and the upcoming meeting of my Surf Noir Summer Supper Club/Alliteration Protection Society called. I stripped my responsibilities to their skivvies and took the plunge.
First, what's sorta fun about this book is the extratextual history: set in July, published on November 15, 1962 (exactly two years before I was hatched), it captures the burgeoning surfing movement right as it was breaking nationally: exactly one week later, the Surfin Safari LP entered the charts at #114 ... maybe not the most impressive number considering the No. 17 album that week was The Stripper and Other Fun Songs for the Family, but one with wider cultural implications [unless you're a stripper]). At any rate, Zebra is an interesting generational novel, born partially out of Millar's grief over his daughter Laura's emotional problems. When Lew Archer has to hit the road looking for the runaway Harriet Blackwell, it's hard not to recall Millar's own odyssey in 1959 as he searched for his own runaway daughter in the skeezetopia of Reno. As Michael Kreyling notes in his wonderful study on Macdonald, Zebra can be read as a prescient foreshadowing of the moral collapse of Golden State youth culture. In her petulant contempt/dependency upon a disapproving daddy, Harriet Blackwell would later morph into Patty Hearst (or Leslie van Houten, the "spoiled little princess" whose surrogate pops was one Charlie Manson). Consider, too, that Zebra was Warren Zevon's favorite Macdonald bc he identified with the snotty surfer who owns the titular vehicle, and you begin to see why so many b-boomers, wondering why paradise rotted under the concrete jungles of their deviated septums, identify with this one.
OK, it's got a few faults. As far-flung as Archer has to go to solve the disappearance, we readers ought to get gold miles. And the dead-bodies pile up more neatly than shirts on a Gap display table. Then there's the big MacGuffin, a trenchcoat whose peculiar button is a major clue, which feels a little too convenient when it shows up in an abandoned baby's hand. That said, there's a sexual perversity here that hints at the fixation with youth and innocence that would soon become a generational (and cultural) Achilles heel. Doll imagery abounds as much here as in Djuna Barnes, and that's a freaky cool thing.
The sufers are really only in a couple of scenes, but they loom over the book like an ominous strain of sociopath disaffection. They're also closely connected to the bratty bohemian painter who oozes generational disdain like it's pimple puss. In this sense, Zebra makes a nice starting point for a study of surf noir, sort of the serious inverse of the absurdist (and go-nowhere while going everywhere) Inherent Vice. I have a feeling it's gonna be my favorite Macdonald.
First, what's sorta fun about this book is the extratextual history: set in July, published on November 15, 1962 (exactly two years before I was hatched), it captures the burgeoning surfing movement right as it was breaking nationally: exactly one week later, the Surfin Safari LP entered the charts at #114 ... maybe not the most impressive number considering the No. 17 album that week was The Stripper and Other Fun Songs for the Family, but one with wider cultural implications [unless you're a stripper]). At any rate, Zebra is an interesting generational novel, born partially out of Millar's grief over his daughter Laura's emotional problems. When Lew Archer has to hit the road looking for the runaway Harriet Blackwell, it's hard not to recall Millar's own odyssey in 1959 as he searched for his own runaway daughter in the skeezetopia of Reno. As Michael Kreyling notes in his wonderful study on Macdonald, Zebra can be read as a prescient foreshadowing of the moral collapse of Golden State youth culture. In her petulant contempt/dependency upon a disapproving daddy, Harriet Blackwell would later morph into Patty Hearst (or Leslie van Houten, the "spoiled little princess" whose surrogate pops was one Charlie Manson). Consider, too, that Zebra was Warren Zevon's favorite Macdonald bc he identified with the snotty surfer who owns the titular vehicle, and you begin to see why so many b-boomers, wondering why paradise rotted under the concrete jungles of their deviated septums, identify with this one.
OK, it's got a few faults. As far-flung as Archer has to go to solve the disappearance, we readers ought to get gold miles. And the dead-bodies pile up more neatly than shirts on a Gap display table. Then there's the big MacGuffin, a trenchcoat whose peculiar button is a major clue, which feels a little too convenient when it shows up in an abandoned baby's hand. That said, there's a sexual perversity here that hints at the fixation with youth and innocence that would soon become a generational (and cultural) Achilles heel. Doll imagery abounds as much here as in Djuna Barnes, and that's a freaky cool thing.
The sufers are really only in a couple of scenes, but they loom over the book like an ominous strain of sociopath disaffection. They're also closely connected to the bratty bohemian painter who oozes generational disdain like it's pimple puss. In this sense, Zebra makes a nice starting point for a study of surf noir, sort of the serious inverse of the absurdist (and go-nowhere while going everywhere) Inherent Vice. I have a feeling it's gonna be my favorite Macdonald.
November 5, 2023
A complex plot and a smattering of well timed twists ensure that The Zebra-Striped Hearse sits as one of the stronger entries in the Lew Archer series. Once again the private detective has the job of measuring the moral fiber of a young man with the aim of protecting a young lady from a potentially dangerous friendship.
The case begins as a seemingly innocuous one but, as so often happens, becomes increasingly complex as more characters are drawn in by Archer’s questioning. On top of that, the body count connected to the case begins to grow.
Archer’s task is to investigate the background of a young artist who’s engaged to Harriett Blackwell, daughter of Colonel Blackwell, the client. Blackwell is your classic rich blowhard who’s overly protective of his daughter and suspicious of any man who shows an interest in her.
Archer starts his investigation and it’s not long before he figures out the man, named Burke Damis, is really Quincy Ralph Simpson and he’s not only on the Missing Persons list but it was his wife who reported him missing. As it turns out, the man is more than just missing. He’s dead - stabbed with an ice pick. And what’s more, he’s not the man Archer knows as Burke Damis.
A quick trip down to Mexico helps Archer with some background on Damis as well as allowing him to meet and talk to Harriett’s mother. Then it’s back up to California again and into the citrus belt where the body has been found.
What follows is an increasingly complicated web of deceit that is gradually unraveled by Archer’s persistence. As is often the case, he takes the heavy handed approach when confronting his various witnesses, suspects and potential allies. On occasion the approach yields results but, by and large, it merely results in clumsy parry and thrust exchanges that seems to provide him with little in the way of progress.
What the story is blessed with is a stunning array of plot twists to ensure that there’s little chance of guessing where the investigation is going to take us next. I was pretty sure, a few times, I knew the identity of the murderer and their motives, only to find I was seriously off in my reasoning. Fortunately, Archer’s on hand to provide the clear and level thinking and is also prepared to share his thoughts with us and confront those who need confronting with some straight talking.
This is another example why Ross Macdonald’s Archer series remains one of the most highly thought of classic PI series. The Zebra-Striped Hearse is packed with all of the action, sharp dialogue and clever plotting necessary to remind us what a hardboiled detective story should be all about.
The case begins as a seemingly innocuous one but, as so often happens, becomes increasingly complex as more characters are drawn in by Archer’s questioning. On top of that, the body count connected to the case begins to grow.
Archer’s task is to investigate the background of a young artist who’s engaged to Harriett Blackwell, daughter of Colonel Blackwell, the client. Blackwell is your classic rich blowhard who’s overly protective of his daughter and suspicious of any man who shows an interest in her.
Archer starts his investigation and it’s not long before he figures out the man, named Burke Damis, is really Quincy Ralph Simpson and he’s not only on the Missing Persons list but it was his wife who reported him missing. As it turns out, the man is more than just missing. He’s dead - stabbed with an ice pick. And what’s more, he’s not the man Archer knows as Burke Damis.
A quick trip down to Mexico helps Archer with some background on Damis as well as allowing him to meet and talk to Harriett’s mother. Then it’s back up to California again and into the citrus belt where the body has been found.
What follows is an increasingly complicated web of deceit that is gradually unraveled by Archer’s persistence. As is often the case, he takes the heavy handed approach when confronting his various witnesses, suspects and potential allies. On occasion the approach yields results but, by and large, it merely results in clumsy parry and thrust exchanges that seems to provide him with little in the way of progress.
What the story is blessed with is a stunning array of plot twists to ensure that there’s little chance of guessing where the investigation is going to take us next. I was pretty sure, a few times, I knew the identity of the murderer and their motives, only to find I was seriously off in my reasoning. Fortunately, Archer’s on hand to provide the clear and level thinking and is also prepared to share his thoughts with us and confront those who need confronting with some straight talking.
This is another example why Ross Macdonald’s Archer series remains one of the most highly thought of classic PI series. The Zebra-Striped Hearse is packed with all of the action, sharp dialogue and clever plotting necessary to remind us what a hardboiled detective story should be all about.
July 15, 2020
Gothic as noir? I've heard MacDonald's books described as such. This one from 1962 is in that period of MacDonald's novels that focus on lost children resulting from the sins of their parents. The Blackwells hire Archer to investigate the background of their daughter Harriet's fiance, Burke Damis. Harriet is a somewhat high strung and naive young woman who will soon come into a large inheritance. Burke Damis is a starving artist and is seen by Harriet's father as a con man and opportunist after Harriet's money. Archer reluctantly takes the case and soon discovers that Damis's past leads to an assumed name belonging to a murder victim. As in almost all of the Archer novels, the plot reveals depths beyond just detective stories and murder mysteries. A zebra-striped hearse cruises the lonely (as depicted in this book) southern California beaches as Archer searches for a missing daughter and discovers more murder victims along the way.
April 20, 2022
The Zebra-Striped Hearse (ha4rdcover) by Ross Macdonald.
My mind is swirling. Fantastic is just a word but can describe in part this magnificently written story by one of the most gifted writers of our time. Published in 1962 it's the 10th in the Lew Archer series. This is and will always be one of my favorites and most probably one that catapulted the author into fame...fame well earned.
Colonel Blackwell has hired Lew to trace his daughter Harriet who he believes is with a painter of ill repute known as Burke Damis. Harriet dropped out of sight after returning from Mexico. Archer needs to uncover the background of Damis in order to trace Harriet. That path leads him to a series of murders that have no connection...or do they.
Lew Archers' time is when a dollar was an appreciated tip, when five dollars was greeted with a smile, and twenty dollars could buy a warm winter coat. It's a time that existed many years ago and still exists within a Lew Archer adventure. HIGH PRAISE for this addition to Macdonald's supreme series.
My mind is swirling. Fantastic is just a word but can describe in part this magnificently written story by one of the most gifted writers of our time. Published in 1962 it's the 10th in the Lew Archer series. This is and will always be one of my favorites and most probably one that catapulted the author into fame...fame well earned.
Colonel Blackwell has hired Lew to trace his daughter Harriet who he believes is with a painter of ill repute known as Burke Damis. Harriet dropped out of sight after returning from Mexico. Archer needs to uncover the background of Damis in order to trace Harriet. That path leads him to a series of murders that have no connection...or do they.
Lew Archers' time is when a dollar was an appreciated tip, when five dollars was greeted with a smile, and twenty dollars could buy a warm winter coat. It's a time that existed many years ago and still exists within a Lew Archer adventure. HIGH PRAISE for this addition to Macdonald's supreme series.
December 29, 2023
King of the last minute twist.
December 14, 2011
1962. The tenth Lew Archer novel, California, early sixties, pre-hippies, WWII still well-remembered, freeways under construction, roads uncrowded, the border with Mexico safe and porous, and a woman walks into Archer's office concerned about her ex. The ex, a Colonel Blackwell, arrives later, concerned about his daughter, who's fallen for a penniless painter in Mexico. Blackwell hires Archer to check out the painter whom he dislikes, distrusts, and wants out of his daughter's life. The daughter stands to inherit a bundle in about six months. She resembles her father, which means she's hard on the eyes and insecure about her looks, and her ovebearing father is convinced no one would fall in love with her except for her money. But the daughter's in love, and for once she's disobeying her Dad.
Archer takes the case which moves him around the state, north, south, east, and down to an American community in Mexico where along the way the bodies pile up. And the daughter goes missing.
Archer is a great companion, not as wise-cracking as some, thankfully, but a clever commentator on his life and world. Crisp narration and twists in the tale make this a fine example of mid-century California noir, before the sixties went wild.
Ross Macdonald is a master of his genre, and though I haven't read many of his books, based on this one I'll be stocking up.
Archer takes the case which moves him around the state, north, south, east, and down to an American community in Mexico where along the way the bodies pile up. And the daughter goes missing.
Archer is a great companion, not as wise-cracking as some, thankfully, but a clever commentator on his life and world. Crisp narration and twists in the tale make this a fine example of mid-century California noir, before the sixties went wild.
Ross Macdonald is a master of his genre, and though I haven't read many of his books, based on this one I'll be stocking up.
July 21, 2009
An excellent detective novel. Macdonald was one of the best modern American writers.
October 5, 2020
Mid-20th Century North American Crime Readathon
BOOK 30
HOOK=2 stars: A mother and father (Colonel Blackwell) argue about their daughter's (Harriet) choice for a husband. This age-old trope simply isn't original.
PACE=4: Solid and steady but not quite a page-turning thriller. At over 115,000 words, this stretches the limit of the genre, but MacDonald is so close to pulling off a one-sit read anyway.
PLOT=5: It appears that a man named 'Burke Damis' has killed and taken on the identity of the dead 'Quincy Ralph Simpson', who was killed with an ice pick through the heart. Did Davis do it? If so, why? And why was the body buried at a certain, specific place, and where does Harriet fit in? And why does Davis have a toilet kit with the initials of "B.C." Does the B.C. in anyway relate to Colonel Blakwell? Or does said kit really belong to a Bruce Campion? Or is it owned by Bruce Campbell? And when we learn several of these characters served in WW2, we want to know if something that happened on the war front has surfaced again. And all this is within the first 100 pages. This is a beautifully done plot, with red herrings and twists and turns all over the place. Dame Agatha Christie would be proud: she used initials often as plot clues/red herrings.
CHARACTERS=4: Harriet has reached adulthood per her age, but is still a child. Harriet's mom sees herself as the Queen of All Things. Burke Davis is a passionate artist, and passionate lover, but a user in many ways. MacDonald goes deep into numerous mental issues including said artist suffering from PTSD. Very good characters, but I only remember Archer.
PLACE=5: The morning haze burning off the beaches of Malibu. Sleazy dives in Mexico where anyone from anywhere in the world can walk in and do anything, be anyone. Lake Tahoe melting into spring. These are a few of my favorite things (honest). Beautifully atmospheric.
SUMMARY- 4.0: It's true that Lew Archer, our detective, simmers on a back-burner while Hammett's Spade and Chandler's Marlowe take the front burners. But Archer outwits both. And how can one NOT pull a book entitled "The Zebra-Striped Hearse" off a library or store bookshelf? (Yes, there is indeed such a hearse in this book, and it leads to the denouement.) But this book, as stated above, at 115,920 words surely tested the limits of any crime/noir editor. Still, MacDonald holds it all together beautifully.
BOOK 30
HOOK=2 stars: A mother and father (Colonel Blackwell) argue about their daughter's (Harriet) choice for a husband. This age-old trope simply isn't original.
PACE=4: Solid and steady but not quite a page-turning thriller. At over 115,000 words, this stretches the limit of the genre, but MacDonald is so close to pulling off a one-sit read anyway.
PLOT=5: It appears that a man named 'Burke Damis' has killed and taken on the identity of the dead 'Quincy Ralph Simpson', who was killed with an ice pick through the heart. Did Davis do it? If so, why? And why was the body buried at a certain, specific place, and where does Harriet fit in? And why does Davis have a toilet kit with the initials of "B.C." Does the B.C. in anyway relate to Colonel Blakwell? Or does said kit really belong to a Bruce Campion? Or is it owned by Bruce Campbell? And when we learn several of these characters served in WW2, we want to know if something that happened on the war front has surfaced again. And all this is within the first 100 pages. This is a beautifully done plot, with red herrings and twists and turns all over the place. Dame Agatha Christie would be proud: she used initials often as plot clues/red herrings.
CHARACTERS=4: Harriet has reached adulthood per her age, but is still a child. Harriet's mom sees herself as the Queen of All Things. Burke Davis is a passionate artist, and passionate lover, but a user in many ways. MacDonald goes deep into numerous mental issues including said artist suffering from PTSD. Very good characters, but I only remember Archer.
PLACE=5: The morning haze burning off the beaches of Malibu. Sleazy dives in Mexico where anyone from anywhere in the world can walk in and do anything, be anyone. Lake Tahoe melting into spring. These are a few of my favorite things (honest). Beautifully atmospheric.
SUMMARY- 4.0: It's true that Lew Archer, our detective, simmers on a back-burner while Hammett's Spade and Chandler's Marlowe take the front burners. But Archer outwits both. And how can one NOT pull a book entitled "The Zebra-Striped Hearse" off a library or store bookshelf? (Yes, there is indeed such a hearse in this book, and it leads to the denouement.) But this book, as stated above, at 115,920 words surely tested the limits of any crime/noir editor. Still, MacDonald holds it all together beautifully.
February 6, 2020
Unlike Raymond Chandler, the "Grand Master"-impostor* whose every book leaves you scratching your head over all the loose ends, unexplained red herrings, implausible developments and nonsensical twists, Ross Macdonald can construct a puzzle with no flaws - hé is the Grand Master of American Noir. You can find the Blackstone Audiobooks Inc. version on Youtube - grand chapeau to the reader, Tom Parker.
*('Who killed that driver, mr. Chandler, and why?' Chandler: 'I don't know.' !!! Imagine the Queen of Crime pulling a stunt like that.)
*('Who killed that driver, mr. Chandler, and why?' Chandler: 'I don't know.' !!! Imagine the Queen of Crime pulling a stunt like that.)
November 4, 2016
In 2008 I wrote this: "I think this is the best detective novel ever written. That takes some qualification and explanation, but I mean as a detective novel, with the emphasis more on 'detective' than 'novel'. I think the wrap-up is perfect. I've read the story maybe four times in the last twenty five years, and just finished it again yesterday. Besides the marvelous plot, there is marvelous development of character, marvelous witty observations, and the beginnings of the deeper psychological themes that were to come in his later books, culminating in the masterpiece, Sleeping Beauty."
I just read it again. I'll expand that review.
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.
It is the tenth of eighteen, from 1962.
MacDonald started out imitating Raymond Chandler, and he was quite good at that. But as the years passed, the most overtly film-noir and hard-boiled aspects faded, as did the violence (though there was never very much of that by modern standards). Through his very strong middle period he combined elements of the hard-boiled with sharp clever writing and a wonderful ability to perceive and reveal people. Here, in this book, we have one of his strongest and most successful books.
It is very complex, and the reader would be rewarded by keeping a note pad and jotting down the first time and place a character is mentioned, and other key points. I’ve added a list below. But beyond the mystery story aspects, no other mystery novelist that I am aware of has so many clever descriptions, insightful observations, compelling similes, and such deep observations on the human condition. He is simply the best writer of all mystery writers.
Like most of the Lew Archer novels, the young people of today are haunted by the actions of their elders. That is not emphasized quite so much in this one as others. Recurring theme: art and artists.
It’s a great loss to the world that MacDonald developed Alzheimer’s at a rather young age. I would love to read a nineteenth Lew Archer novel.
The story begins, like many in the Lew Archer canon, with trouble in a wealthy family. Ex-colonel Mark Blackwell, a strait-laced army man, comes to Archer’s office to say that his only child, 24 year old Harriet, is about to run off with a penniless nobody who calls himself an artist, named Burke Damis. Blackwell is furious that Harriet would defy him and “ruin her life” in that way. He think Damis knows that when she turns 25, Harriet will inherit a lot of money. Isobel Blackwell, his second wife of a year or so, is more sympathetic to Harriet.
Archer takes a disliking to Mark Blackwell but agrees to investigate Damis to discover his background. Thanks to Harriet, Damis has been living in the Blackwell beach house at Malibu where he can paint. Archer finds him there and stakes out the house, sipping coffee at a small diner overlooking it. A group of teenage surfers driving a zebra-striped hearse come in.
When Damis and Harriet drive off, Archer follows them to Blackwell’s mansion in exclusive Bel Air, where an ugly confrontation occurs. Harriet and Damis drive off. Blackwell wants Archer to track them down. He begins by returning to the beach house. A thorough search turns up one odd item: an airline ticket stub from Guadalajara Mexico to LA in the name of Quincy Ralph Simpson. It is now dark and Archer notices the same group of teenagers he saw before now camped on the beach below the house. One of the girls is wearing a dirty but good quality Harris Tweed overcoat.
Archer flies to Mexico where coincidentally(?) Blackwell’s first wife has been living in Ajijic (a real place) for ten years with her second husband, a retired dentist named Keith Hatchen. As Archer follows the trail in Ajijic we meet a wonderful collection of colorful, well delineated characters. This is perhaps the best part of the book. It turns out that Damis and Harriet met there about a month earlier.
I won’t attempt to summarize the plot much more, except to say that it is wonderfully complex but not bewilderingly so. Archer discovers that “Burke Damis” is an alias; his real name is Bruce Campion, and he was suspected of murdering his wife Dolly about six months earlier in San Mateo County, which is just south of San Francisco. A few months before that Dolly and Quincy Ralph Simpson both worked near Lake Tahoe where, surprise, surprise, Blackwell has another vacation home. Dolly grew up in the little town of Citrus Junction (fictional), which is apparently in the orange belt about fifty miles east of LA.
So we have a hexagon of key locations: Malibu, LA, Ajijic, Citrus Junction, Tahoe, and San Mateo County.
The characters:
Mark Blackwell, ex army Colonel, the ramrod type.
Isobel Blackwell, his second wife, married a year or so.
Harriet, daughter of Mark Blackwell and his first wife, Pauline.
Some teenage surfers at Malibu who drive an old hearse they painted with zebra stripes, and sometimes pick up interesting things in the surf.
Pauline (Blackwell) Hatchen, mother of Harriet, ex-wife of Mark.
Keith Hatchen, retired dentist.
Burke Damis. Rumor in Ajijic is that he murdered his wife Dolly.
Q. R. Simpson Quincy Ralph. Just an alias of Damis? No; in fact he was murdered not long before.
Vicky, wife of Q. R. Simpson.
Chauncey Reynolds, owner of a bar in Ajijic.
Claude Stacy, manager of a posada.
Helen Wilkinson, aging ex-actress, retired to Ajijic.
Bill Wilkinson, husband of Helen.
Anne Castle, artist and weaver, owns a craft store in Ajijic. serviceable.
Bruce Campion, aspiring artist.
Dolly Stone Campion.
Hank Sholto, Lake Tahoe, Nevada side; looks after houses.
Fawn King, friend of QRS in Tahoe.
Edmund B. Damis, art professor at Berkeley.
Evelyn Jurgenson, sister of Bruce Campion.
Mr. and Mrs. Stone, Dolly’s parents, live in Citrus Junction.
Mr. and Mrs. Jaimet, former owners of the house across the street from the Stone’s. Mr. Jaimet, deceased, was a respected high school principal. Mrs. Jaimet, well, I’ll say no more about her.
Several sheriffs and policemen.
This is a superb story, superbly written as only Ross MacDonald could. It doesn't get any better than this folks.
Examples of what I call good writing:
She jumped as though lightning had struck her, not for the first time.
I bumped my head on a low hanging fruit which was probably a mango. Above the trees the stars hung in the freshly cleared sky like clusters of some smaller, brighter fruit too high to reach.
The sky had cleared, and a few sunbathers were lying around in the sand like bodies after a catastrophe. Beyond the surf line six surfers waited in prayerful attitudes on their boards.
I just read it again. I'll expand that review.
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.
It is the tenth of eighteen, from 1962.
MacDonald started out imitating Raymond Chandler, and he was quite good at that. But as the years passed, the most overtly film-noir and hard-boiled aspects faded, as did the violence (though there was never very much of that by modern standards). Through his very strong middle period he combined elements of the hard-boiled with sharp clever writing and a wonderful ability to perceive and reveal people. Here, in this book, we have one of his strongest and most successful books.
It is very complex, and the reader would be rewarded by keeping a note pad and jotting down the first time and place a character is mentioned, and other key points. I’ve added a list below. But beyond the mystery story aspects, no other mystery novelist that I am aware of has so many clever descriptions, insightful observations, compelling similes, and such deep observations on the human condition. He is simply the best writer of all mystery writers.
Like most of the Lew Archer novels, the young people of today are haunted by the actions of their elders. That is not emphasized quite so much in this one as others. Recurring theme: art and artists.
It’s a great loss to the world that MacDonald developed Alzheimer’s at a rather young age. I would love to read a nineteenth Lew Archer novel.
The story begins, like many in the Lew Archer canon, with trouble in a wealthy family. Ex-colonel Mark Blackwell, a strait-laced army man, comes to Archer’s office to say that his only child, 24 year old Harriet, is about to run off with a penniless nobody who calls himself an artist, named Burke Damis. Blackwell is furious that Harriet would defy him and “ruin her life” in that way. He think Damis knows that when she turns 25, Harriet will inherit a lot of money. Isobel Blackwell, his second wife of a year or so, is more sympathetic to Harriet.
Archer takes a disliking to Mark Blackwell but agrees to investigate Damis to discover his background. Thanks to Harriet, Damis has been living in the Blackwell beach house at Malibu where he can paint. Archer finds him there and stakes out the house, sipping coffee at a small diner overlooking it. A group of teenage surfers driving a zebra-striped hearse come in.
When Damis and Harriet drive off, Archer follows them to Blackwell’s mansion in exclusive Bel Air, where an ugly confrontation occurs. Harriet and Damis drive off. Blackwell wants Archer to track them down. He begins by returning to the beach house. A thorough search turns up one odd item: an airline ticket stub from Guadalajara Mexico to LA in the name of Quincy Ralph Simpson. It is now dark and Archer notices the same group of teenagers he saw before now camped on the beach below the house. One of the girls is wearing a dirty but good quality Harris Tweed overcoat.
Archer flies to Mexico where coincidentally(?) Blackwell’s first wife has been living in Ajijic (a real place) for ten years with her second husband, a retired dentist named Keith Hatchen. As Archer follows the trail in Ajijic we meet a wonderful collection of colorful, well delineated characters. This is perhaps the best part of the book. It turns out that Damis and Harriet met there about a month earlier.
I won’t attempt to summarize the plot much more, except to say that it is wonderfully complex but not bewilderingly so. Archer discovers that “Burke Damis” is an alias; his real name is Bruce Campion, and he was suspected of murdering his wife Dolly about six months earlier in San Mateo County, which is just south of San Francisco. A few months before that Dolly and Quincy Ralph Simpson both worked near Lake Tahoe where, surprise, surprise, Blackwell has another vacation home. Dolly grew up in the little town of Citrus Junction (fictional), which is apparently in the orange belt about fifty miles east of LA.
So we have a hexagon of key locations: Malibu, LA, Ajijic, Citrus Junction, Tahoe, and San Mateo County.
The characters:
Mark Blackwell, ex army Colonel, the ramrod type.
Isobel Blackwell, his second wife, married a year or so.
Harriet, daughter of Mark Blackwell and his first wife, Pauline.
Some teenage surfers at Malibu who drive an old hearse they painted with zebra stripes, and sometimes pick up interesting things in the surf.
Pauline (Blackwell) Hatchen, mother of Harriet, ex-wife of Mark.
Keith Hatchen, retired dentist.
Burke Damis. Rumor in Ajijic is that he murdered his wife Dolly.
Q. R. Simpson Quincy Ralph. Just an alias of Damis? No; in fact he was murdered not long before.
Vicky, wife of Q. R. Simpson.
Chauncey Reynolds, owner of a bar in Ajijic.
Claude Stacy, manager of a posada.
Helen Wilkinson, aging ex-actress, retired to Ajijic.
Bill Wilkinson, husband of Helen.
Anne Castle, artist and weaver, owns a craft store in Ajijic. serviceable.
Bruce Campion, aspiring artist.
Dolly Stone Campion.
Hank Sholto, Lake Tahoe, Nevada side; looks after houses.
Fawn King, friend of QRS in Tahoe.
Edmund B. Damis, art professor at Berkeley.
Evelyn Jurgenson, sister of Bruce Campion.
Mr. and Mrs. Stone, Dolly’s parents, live in Citrus Junction.
Mr. and Mrs. Jaimet, former owners of the house across the street from the Stone’s. Mr. Jaimet, deceased, was a respected high school principal. Mrs. Jaimet, well, I’ll say no more about her.
Several sheriffs and policemen.
This is a superb story, superbly written as only Ross MacDonald could. It doesn't get any better than this folks.
Examples of what I call good writing:
She jumped as though lightning had struck her, not for the first time.
I bumped my head on a low hanging fruit which was probably a mango. Above the trees the stars hung in the freshly cleared sky like clusters of some smaller, brighter fruit too high to reach.
The sky had cleared, and a few sunbathers were lying around in the sand like bodies after a catastrophe. Beyond the surf line six surfers waited in prayerful attitudes on their boards.
May 9, 2017
I am on new ground here. Although I read The Drowning Pool many years ago, what I knew then about Ross Macdonald, I have forgotten. The Zebra-Striped Hearse is an intricately plotted novel about a whole series of interconnected murders. Until half the book is finished, the suspect is one man, a painter variously named Simpson, Damis, or Campion -- and then the suspicion starts shifting all over the place. Before you've finished the novel you will have reason to suspect everyone, maybe even Detective Lew Archer.
Part of this shifting scene of suspicion is mirrored by the fact that, within the space of a week, Archer travels from Mexico to Tahoe to San Francisco and back again in search of evidence that seems to become increasingly fungible.
I think I will enjoy reading more of MacDOnald's Lew Archer novels.
Part of this shifting scene of suspicion is mirrored by the fact that, within the space of a week, Archer travels from Mexico to Tahoe to San Francisco and back again in search of evidence that seems to become increasingly fungible.
I think I will enjoy reading more of MacDOnald's Lew Archer novels.
August 1, 2020
I'm not a fan of the PI/whodunnit genre (too much plot [I get lost easily], too many names, page after page of the detective questioning people), but I love Macdonald's books. Chandler's okay, an original, but the whole simile thing distracts (it's been parodied too much, and the books at times seem like parodies themselves). Maybe I love RM because I'm from California, and the books are set there. Maybe it's the casually cynical tone that underlies every aspect of the novels, right down to the descriptions. Maybe it's because he's a great fucking writer. This one takes place in the early '60s and touches on the surf culture of the time, which was interesting. It moves from Malibu to Mexico to Tahoe, and it's fun to see those places depicted in that era. The plot is his usual fractured rich family horror story, but who cares about plot? When we talk about "elevated" genre, this is where we should begin.
February 12, 2016
Let's get this out of the way from the start: "The Zebra-Striped Hearse" is a horrible name. The name 'technically' makes sense with the story but the name is just so bad that it's distracting...if that makes any sense.
Now the book itself, I found delightful. A great mystery from start to finish that had so many twists and turns that I honestly kept guessing down to the last every pages. Macdonald really put Archer through his paces in this one. I can't think of another book where Archer had to travel to so many distant locales.
I enjoyed his relationship with the femme fatale even though (or possible because) it remained so chaste I like that Macdonald ages Archer and has the book take place circa when the book was written. Too many detective series freeze during a particular era. God knows Macdonald could have left this series in the 40's where he first created it but he's allowing his character to grow just like the world around him. Given that I'm only about halfway through this series, I'm excited to see where that growth leads.
Quotable Quotes:
"Everything's under control," I said. "We were just having a yelling contest. This gentleman won."
I apologized a second time for invading her privacy, and for the unspoken fact that she was not pretty, and went upstairs.
She had the faintly anachronistic airs of a woman who had been good-looking but had found no place to use her looks except the mirror.
I was thinking that you never could tell what murderers would do. Most of them were acting out a fantasy which they couldn't explain themselves: destroying an unlamented past which seemed to bar them from the brave new world, erasing the fear of death by inflicting death, or burying an old malignant grief where it would sprout and multiply and end by destroying the destroyer.
Now the book itself, I found delightful. A great mystery from start to finish that had so many twists and turns that I honestly kept guessing down to the last every pages. Macdonald really put Archer through his paces in this one. I can't think of another book where Archer had to travel to so many distant locales.
I enjoyed his relationship with the femme fatale even though (or possible because) it remained so chaste I like that Macdonald ages Archer and has the book take place circa when the book was written. Too many detective series freeze during a particular era. God knows Macdonald could have left this series in the 40's where he first created it but he's allowing his character to grow just like the world around him. Given that I'm only about halfway through this series, I'm excited to see where that growth leads.
Quotable Quotes:
"Everything's under control," I said. "We were just having a yelling contest. This gentleman won."
I apologized a second time for invading her privacy, and for the unspoken fact that she was not pretty, and went upstairs.
She had the faintly anachronistic airs of a woman who had been good-looking but had found no place to use her looks except the mirror.
I was thinking that you never could tell what murderers would do. Most of them were acting out a fantasy which they couldn't explain themselves: destroying an unlamented past which seemed to bar them from the brave new world, erasing the fear of death by inflicting death, or burying an old malignant grief where it would sprout and multiply and end by destroying the destroyer.
June 17, 2017
This is one fine tale. I sometimes find with detective stories that the plot gets a little too twisty and since it is meant as a light read I don't want to pay full attention, but this book has a clear path along the way to resolution. And many fine turns of phrase. One of the better ones I can recall
April 20, 2022
The Zebra-Striped Hearse (ha4rdcover) by Ross Macdonald.
My mind is swirling. Fantastic is just a word but can describe in part this magnificently written story by one of the most gifted writers of our time. Published in 1962 it's the 10th in the Lew Archer series. This is and will always be one of my favorites and most probably one that catapulted the author into fame...fame well earned.
Colonel Blackwell has hired Lew to trace his daughter Harriet who he believes is with a painter of ill repute known as Burke Damis. Harriet dropped out of sight after returning from Mexico. Archer needs to uncover the background of Damis in order to trace Harriet. That path leads him to a series of murders that have no connection...or do they.
Lew Archers' time is when a dollar was an appreciated tip, when five dollars was greeted with a smile, and twenty dollars could buy a warm winter coat. It's a time that existed many years ago and still exists within a Lew Archer adventure. HIGH PRAISE for this addition to Macdonald's supreme series.
My mind is swirling. Fantastic is just a word but can describe in part this magnificently written story by one of the most gifted writers of our time. Published in 1962 it's the 10th in the Lew Archer series. This is and will always be one of my favorites and most probably one that catapulted the author into fame...fame well earned.
Colonel Blackwell has hired Lew to trace his daughter Harriet who he believes is with a painter of ill repute known as Burke Damis. Harriet dropped out of sight after returning from Mexico. Archer needs to uncover the background of Damis in order to trace Harriet. That path leads him to a series of murders that have no connection...or do they.
Lew Archers' time is when a dollar was an appreciated tip, when five dollars was greeted with a smile, and twenty dollars could buy a warm winter coat. It's a time that existed many years ago and still exists within a Lew Archer adventure. HIGH PRAISE for this addition to Macdonald's supreme series.
August 24, 2018
3.5
If you want to know what the story is about besides that it is a classic, hardboiled detective novel that dates from 1962--so expect women to be written pretty much the way they were in these sorts of novels back then--nothing contemporary about it, read the blurb ;).
This is the first Lew Archer book that I can remember reading (quite possible I've read him before and forgotten), and I liked it better than I thought I would. Truth be told, I read it for the Z,because it was shortish and it was hard to find a book starting with Z I could easily get that I felt like reading this summer. I like it better than the Philip Marlowe books and I didn't even listen to an audiobook, although before I got engrossed in the book I did imagine a hardboiled detective voice in my head to get me in the mood. I almost want to give it 4 stars, but I have a feeling that I read it at just the right time so I'm playing it safe as suspect that at another time it would have been closer to 3 stars, and certainly there were parts that weren't my style of writing.
Clearly, Ross Mcdonald knew how to spin this sort of tale, which isn't generally my cup of tea.
If you want to know what the story is about besides that it is a classic, hardboiled detective novel that dates from 1962--so expect women to be written pretty much the way they were in these sorts of novels back then--nothing contemporary about it, read the blurb ;).
This is the first Lew Archer book that I can remember reading (quite possible I've read him before and forgotten), and I liked it better than I thought I would. Truth be told, I read it for the Z,because it was shortish and it was hard to find a book starting with Z I could easily get that I felt like reading this summer. I like it better than the Philip Marlowe books and I didn't even listen to an audiobook, although before I got engrossed in the book I did imagine a hardboiled detective voice in my head to get me in the mood. I almost want to give it 4 stars, but I have a feeling that I read it at just the right time so I'm playing it safe as suspect that at another time it would have been closer to 3 stars, and certainly there were parts that weren't my style of writing.
Clearly, Ross Mcdonald knew how to spin this sort of tale, which isn't generally my cup of tea.
March 9, 2010
When trying to fill out my detective fiction reading with a broad spectrum spread across more than two decades I stumbled across the names Russ Macdonald and Lew Archer. While The Underground Man seems to be most frequently cited as Macdonald’s best work to feature PI Lew Archer (along with The Chill) I was unable to acquire a copy and instead “settled” for the Edgar Award Winning The Zebra Striped Hearse. While it lacks the incisive social commentary frequently attributed to The Underground Man it is still a taught, thrilling, mystery that keeps you guessing until the end; and then some.
The Zebra Striped Hearse, in true detective story and noirish fashion, opens with a damsel in distress. An impassioned plea from an attractive woman lands Lew Archer at something of an impasse potentially working towards a woman’s desire to see her step-daughter happy and working towards a father’s desire to protect his daughter from harm. Lew Archer is a PI cut from the same vein as Marlowe. Though where Marlowe’s knight-errant nature tends to shine through his cynical approach to life Archer never let’s his own emotions get in the way of his case. That isn’t to say that Archer doesn’t discuss or acknowledge his own reactions to the people and situations he finds himself in only that his empathy and sympathetic nature is put to the side if favor of getting the job done. Archer is dogged in his determination to get the job done to the point of sacrificing even potential emotional entanglements. It doesn’t really win him any friends. Here it means often straining his relationship with his employer to the breaking point.
Written in the sixties The Zebra Striped Hearse walks a fine line between the wanton violence of I, the Jury and the more directed approach of Raymond Chandler. While the reader gets glimpses of several corpses and sees a fair amount of gore towards the end of the novel it lacks the chaotic feel of Spillane’s work even though it might exceed the bounds of what Chandler deemed necessary. Perhaps more fascinating is novel’s juxtaposition of Lew’s lack of sexual entanglement with the depravity of the villain that is revealed late in the novel. Macdonald manages to deftly skate around tackling the topic head on while putting forth a rather poignant and tragic portrayal of the consequences. These narrative acrobatics manage to detract nothing from the horror that these revelations engender while at the same time avoiding any potential fallout a more explicit discussion might result in.
What I find fascinating here as well, and not evident in the works from Spillane and Chandler, is the amount of actual detecting that Archer does. Where Mike Hammer seemed to barrel his way through problems, and Marlowe seemed to effortlessly gravitate towards the right people, neither seemed to put in the legwork. Archer on the other hand bounces around from a variety of locations along the California coast, Nevada, and Mexico ask actual questions from people who don’t always turn out to be involved, at least directly, with the case he is working. While each manages to help piece together a complete picture the effect is gradual and can be followed by the reader with little, if any, need for large intuitive leaps. There is more reliance on the hermeneutic code in Lew’s actions and in Macdonald’s prose a fact that lends a certain participatory air to act of reading the novel that contrasts the almost fly on the wall experience I had while reading both The Long Goodbye and I, the Jury.
As stated above The Zebra Striped Hearse is an entertaining mystery that keeps the reader, along with Archer, guessing right up until the end. While it lacks the broad scope of Marlowe’s commentary in The Long Goodbye, or the moral ambiguity of Mike Hammer it manages to produce a rather deft and delicate look at the consequence of actions that wouldn’t be misplace on an episode of Law and Order: SVU. Which is perhaps a depressing fact for a novel written almost a half a century ago. If you are a mystery fan and have yet to give Russ Macdonald and Lew Archer a try The Zebra Striped Hearse is a good place to start.
The Zebra Striped Hearse, in true detective story and noirish fashion, opens with a damsel in distress. An impassioned plea from an attractive woman lands Lew Archer at something of an impasse potentially working towards a woman’s desire to see her step-daughter happy and working towards a father’s desire to protect his daughter from harm. Lew Archer is a PI cut from the same vein as Marlowe. Though where Marlowe’s knight-errant nature tends to shine through his cynical approach to life Archer never let’s his own emotions get in the way of his case. That isn’t to say that Archer doesn’t discuss or acknowledge his own reactions to the people and situations he finds himself in only that his empathy and sympathetic nature is put to the side if favor of getting the job done. Archer is dogged in his determination to get the job done to the point of sacrificing even potential emotional entanglements. It doesn’t really win him any friends. Here it means often straining his relationship with his employer to the breaking point.
Written in the sixties The Zebra Striped Hearse walks a fine line between the wanton violence of I, the Jury and the more directed approach of Raymond Chandler. While the reader gets glimpses of several corpses and sees a fair amount of gore towards the end of the novel it lacks the chaotic feel of Spillane’s work even though it might exceed the bounds of what Chandler deemed necessary. Perhaps more fascinating is novel’s juxtaposition of Lew’s lack of sexual entanglement with the depravity of the villain that is revealed late in the novel. Macdonald manages to deftly skate around tackling the topic head on while putting forth a rather poignant and tragic portrayal of the consequences. These narrative acrobatics manage to detract nothing from the horror that these revelations engender while at the same time avoiding any potential fallout a more explicit discussion might result in.
What I find fascinating here as well, and not evident in the works from Spillane and Chandler, is the amount of actual detecting that Archer does. Where Mike Hammer seemed to barrel his way through problems, and Marlowe seemed to effortlessly gravitate towards the right people, neither seemed to put in the legwork. Archer on the other hand bounces around from a variety of locations along the California coast, Nevada, and Mexico ask actual questions from people who don’t always turn out to be involved, at least directly, with the case he is working. While each manages to help piece together a complete picture the effect is gradual and can be followed by the reader with little, if any, need for large intuitive leaps. There is more reliance on the hermeneutic code in Lew’s actions and in Macdonald’s prose a fact that lends a certain participatory air to act of reading the novel that contrasts the almost fly on the wall experience I had while reading both The Long Goodbye and I, the Jury.
As stated above The Zebra Striped Hearse is an entertaining mystery that keeps the reader, along with Archer, guessing right up until the end. While it lacks the broad scope of Marlowe’s commentary in The Long Goodbye, or the moral ambiguity of Mike Hammer it manages to produce a rather deft and delicate look at the consequence of actions that wouldn’t be misplace on an episode of Law and Order: SVU. Which is perhaps a depressing fact for a novel written almost a half a century ago. If you are a mystery fan and have yet to give Russ Macdonald and Lew Archer a try The Zebra Striped Hearse is a good place to start.
July 28, 2010
Really enjoyed the 2 books I've read by him. Sue Grafton said he influenced her writng, so I checked him out. Set in southern CA, it's fun to learn about my adopted home during that time. I enjoy his thought process, and the dialogue as he interviews witnesses and suspects.
MacDonald's books have helped inspire new generations of writers -- from Robert B. Parker and Sue Grafton, to Roger Simon, Jonathan Kellerman, S.J. Rozan, James Ellroy, and Richard Barre.
"Macdonald's writing added psychological depth and insights into the motivations of his characters. Macdonald's plots were complicated, and often turned on Archer's unearthing family secrets of his clients and of the criminals who victimized them. Lost or wayward sons and daughters were a theme common to many of the novels. Combined the "whodunit" and the psychological thriller. Even his regular readers seldom saw a Macdonald denouement coming."
MacDonald's books have helped inspire new generations of writers -- from Robert B. Parker and Sue Grafton, to Roger Simon, Jonathan Kellerman, S.J. Rozan, James Ellroy, and Richard Barre.
"Macdonald's writing added psychological depth and insights into the motivations of his characters. Macdonald's plots were complicated, and often turned on Archer's unearthing family secrets of his clients and of the criminals who victimized them. Lost or wayward sons and daughters were a theme common to many of the novels. Combined the "whodunit" and the psychological thriller. Even his regular readers seldom saw a Macdonald denouement coming."
October 28, 2020
I'm having fun re-reading my old Ross Macdonald paperbacks. This one is a particularly tangled web involving, as so many Macdonald novels do, conflict between parents and children. The older generation is always messing up the younger generation in these novels and this turns most of the Lew Archer novels into a combination of mystery and family drama. (The downside is that it sometimes makes Macdonald go into eyeroll inducing Freudian explanations of his character's behavior.) In reading this novel I realized that each of Archer's interviews with suspects and witnesses could almost stand as a short story by itself, they are all little pockets of drama. Macdonald is a skilled storyteller and an excellent weaver of mysteries. Very entertaining.
March 8, 2017
Pretty good P.I. mystery but the solution became clear to me about 80% through (which I view as a negative in a mystery book).
December 16, 2022
Great story, complex plot, and plenty of twists make for a delightful novel. Fans of the author and the Lew Archer series should be sure to read this one.
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