Ross MACDONALD - The Archer Files

Next Saturday night the party was at my aunt’s place. I was introduced to guests, given a taste of champagne and sent to bed. Laurie had her first drink and got high, and I couldn’t go to sleep. “In a Little Spanish Town.” I got homesick for my mother, and tried to comfort myself by self-abuse, as my mother’s relatives called it. I got a little high on sex and champagne and went into Laurie’s room to smell her clothes. I was in the closet when Laurie came in with Mr. Castor. He promised her things, including “ownership” of this apartment building. She refused, afraid of another baby, not over the last one.

“Didn’t Lola teach you to take precautions?” he asked her. “Who was its father?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He forced her by psychological threat….It wasn’t exciting at all. It made me sick.

Afterwards she sobbed. I crept out of the closet, and pretended to have come in through the door.

“You’re my only friend. I wish you were big enough to look after me….You’re so little, you won’t hurt me.”

I wasn’t so little….

I can still taste her sweetness on my tongue, mixed with the salt of tears.

Eudora Welty, review of Ross Macdonald’s The Underground Man , New York Times , February 14, 1971; reprinted in The Eye of the Story: Selected Essays & Reviews (Vintage, 1990).

Ross Macdonald, introduction to Lew Archer, Private Investigator (The Mysterious Press, 1977); reprinted in Self-Portrait: Ceaselessly Into the Past (Capra Press, 1981). Macdonald was writing about another private detective, but his words seem to apply as well to Archer.

Ross Macdonald, Black Money (Knopf, 1966).

Ross Macdonald, The Moving Target (Knopf, 1949).

Ross Macdonald, The Instant Enemy (Knopf, 1968).

Ross Macdonald, The Drowning Pool (Knopf, 1950).

Ross Macdonald, The Way Some People Die (Knopf, 1951).

Chuck Thegze, “Behind Lew Archer: Interview with Ross Macdonald,” Village Voice , February 10, 1975.

Ross Macdonald, The Blue Hammer (Knopf, 1976).

Principal Pictures, 1924.

Ross Macdonald, The Doomsters (Knopf, 1958).

Ross Macdonald, The Chill (Knopf, 1964).

The Drowning Pool.

Ross Macdonald, The Zebra-Striped Hearse (Knopf, 1962).

Ross Macdonald, The Far Side of the Dollar (Knopf, 1965).

The Doomsters.

The Doomsters.

Ross Macdonald, Find a Victim (Knopf, 1954).

The Doomsters.

Find a Victim.

The Far Side of the Dollar.

The Chill.

The Instant Enemy.

Find a Victim.

The Moving Target.

The Way Some People Die (Knopf, 1951).

The Moving Target.

Ross Macdonald, The Barbarous Coast (Knopf, 1956).

Ross Macdonald, Sleeping Beauty (Knopf, 1973).

Ross Macdonald, “Heyday in the Blood” fragment.

The Moving Target.

Ross Macdonald, The Wycherly Woman (Knopf, 1961).

The Drowning Pool.

The Instant Enemy.

The Drowning Pool.

The Drowning Pool.

Ross Macdonald, “The Angry Man”.

The Way Some People Die.

Find a Victim.

Find a Victim.

Ross Macdonald, The Goodbye Look (1969).

The Doomsters.

Black Money.

The Goodbye Look.

The Barbarous Coast.

The Drowning Pool.

The Zebra-Striped Hearse.

Ross Macdonald, The Ivory Grin (Knopf, 1952).

“The Angry Man”.

The Way Some People Die.

Find a Victim.

The Moving Target.

The Barbarous Coast.

Ross Macdonald, The Galton Case (Knopf, 1959).

The Chill.

The Far Side of the Dollar.

Find a Victim.

The Moving Target.

Ross Macdonald, The Ivory Grin (Knopf, 1952).

The Chill.

The Far Side of the Dollar.

The Barbarous Coast.

Black Money.

The Galton Case.

The Chill.

The Instant Enemy.

The Barbarous Coast.

The Doomsters.

The Doomsters.

The Galton Case.

The Blue Hammer.

Black Money.

The Ivory Grin.

The Instant Enemy.

The Zebra-Striped Hearse.

The Ivory Grin.

The Barbarous Coast.

Find a Victim.

The Ivory Grin.

The Far Side of the Dollar.

The Doomsters.

The Doomsters.

The Doomsters.

The Underground Man.