Gonzalo-
You're getting a lot of terrific intel from the other Rare Birds, so I'll
keep my response brief. I've read them all, and I agree with Mario's
assessment of the beginning of the series being far more indebted to
Chandler's example than the later books. There's also quite a bit more
direct violence (in other words, stuff that doesn't happen "on camera" if
you catch my meaning).
All in all I think that MacDonald really began to hit his stride during the
late 50s (especially by the time of the publication of THE DOOMSTERS, and by
that I mean that he really had found his own voice. This led to his hey-day
during the 60s: THE CHILL, THE GALTON CASE, THE GOODBYE LOOK, THE WYCHERLY
WOMAN, THE ZEBRA-STRIPED HEARSE and MacDonald's personal favorite from his
series, BLACK MONEY (a re-imagining of THE GREAT GATSBY, one of his favorite
works of fiction) come to mind.
In a way I envy you just coming across this terrific series. Although I can
read these books over and over again, I can never again discover them for
the first time.
I recently wrote a review of THE DOOMSTERS for Patricia Abbott's Forgotten
Books Blog, and I've enclosed the text of that review below, in case you're
interested.
All the Best-
Brian
*THE DOOMSTERS by Ross MacDonald*
So hey, I just read this terrific book by a major writer in the mystery
canon. In it, a world-weary private investigator allows himself to get
sucked in to the domestic problems of a rich, prominent Southern California
family. As the story plays out, the P.I. uncovers a number of old secrets,
all of which point toward a long-covered up crime committed by a member of
the prestigious family's eminently respectable older generation. The
current family crisis is a direct result of that original crime (or, if you
prefer, "sin"), and also invariably involves a relatively blameless member
of the family's younger generation.
The author of course is Ross MacDonald. And the paragraph above could
describe most of the books he wrote from the mid-fifties onward. It's been
said of MacDonald that for the second half of his career he told one story
over and over, but he told it so well, and varied the details enough that
few readers cared. Titles such as THE DROWNING POOL, THE CHILL, THE
WYCHERLY WOMAN, THE GALTON CASE, and BLACK MONEY bear this out. In fact,
beginning with THE CHILL in 1960, MacDonald had a decade-long run of
acclaimed books utilizing variations of the above basic plot framework.
But what about his earlier work? MacDonald's series hero Lew Archer started
out a hard-boiled member of the Hammett/Chandler school, but evolved into
something completely different. Over the course of the series, Archer
becomes a less and less obtrusive observer of the manifold ways in which
families and their various pathologies can prey upon their children.
THE DOOMSTERS, published in 1959 (a year before the land-mark THE CHILL)
chronicles Archer's transition from hard-boiled, physical, wise-cracking
P.I. to quasi-social worker, with terrific results. The vestiges of
MacDonald's earlier penchant for action scenes are there (including Archer
being attacked and placed in a sleeper hold in his own car by a client who
then steals said car). So, too is MacDonald's evolving strong voice and
trademark elegiac language: "Before the door closed, one of them broke into
a storm of weeping. The noise of grief is impersonal, and I couldn't be
sure which one of them it was. But I thought it must have been Mildred. Her
loss was the worst. It had been going on for a long time, and was
continuing."
With deft characterization, a strong, if familiar plot, and the words of the
one of the 20th century's great writers, THE DOOMSTERS is on a par with
MacDonald's best work during the 60s. Lost in the roar of critical acclaim
that MacDonald received as a result of the publication of THE CHILL a year
later, THE DOOMSTERS has been unfairly forgotten. This year marks the
fiftieth anniversary of its publication, and it' well worth a read.
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