The Galton Case (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) (original 1959; edition 1996)

I'll see if I can sum this up without giving anything away or confusing myself. Lew Archer, private investigator, has been hired by an old friend (and lawyer) to find the missing son of a wealthy widow. The investigation appears to be pretty pointless. Son Anthony Galton ran away twenty years earlier when he married a woman not to his parents' liking. They were so upset they ordered him to "never darken their doorstep again" which he hasn't. Now, twenty years later mum wants to make amends and give her prodigal son his share of the inheritance...only no one can find him. Here's what is found: Anthony took on the assumed name of John Brown and he presumably had a son of the same name, John Brown Jr. Now the real mystery is does John Brown Jr. deserve his share of the pie? Of course there are many, many more twists and turns to this mystery! ( )

Archer is hired to find the long lost son of the fabulously wealthy Maria Galton. Along the way he meets John Brown a young man who claims to be Galton's son. While Brown, in the role of the prodigal son, is driving a slick new car, Archer is going through his past to find out who he really is. When Peter Culligan is murdered another mystery is added to the plot of what is one of Ross Macdonald's best books.
In the search for the true identity of John Brown Archer goes through different levels of his life exploring the question of identity and what creates it. With this book Macdonald creates a detective novel with greater depth than his previous books.
Who did it becomes who did it and what does that say about human nature. The author's characters become the archetype for everyman as he delves deeper into human relationships.
The author's patterned plots make more sense as develops his characters to be the heart of his books. ( )

WARNING: This review contains spoilers.

****

This has been described as Ross Macdonald's breakthrough novel, and I would tend to agree that it is very good indeed. The case for Archer this time involves tracking down the long-lost son of a very wealthy widow, who became estranged from the son over his choice of wife and who now wants to be reconciled before she dies. Archer is skeptical that anything useful will turn up, but surprisingly, the trail winds up at a son of the son, the spitting image of his father and very much eager to discover the family he never had.

I was kept guessing more than once over the course of this book. Even if you're able to figure it out, though, it's a treat to follow Archer on his rounds. Macdonald's writing is excellent as usual, ably depicting the more run-down aspects of society and Archer's pointed assessments of the people he meets. This gift for description is almost regrettable when Archer runs into some toughs and has his jaw broken, but at least it does not shy away from the uglier side of a PI's job.

One aspect of the solution that both amused me and made me slightly indignant was the Canadian angle: the eventual culprit is caught out by the fact that he pronounces the word "about" in the stereotypical Canadian way (although to be fair, Macdonald says it sounds more like "a boat" than "a boot"), and when he writes a letter to Archer, he uses the word "labour" (whereas if he were born and bred in the States, he would write "labor"). That was actually a really funny clue because I did not notice it at ALL. Being a Canadian reading primarily US-published books, I've trained my brain to accept both spellings. So when Archer dropped that little bombshell I had to flip back and see for myself. I'd make a lousy detective, apparently.

I would definitely recommend this book, particularly to fans of Macdonald or Chandler. ( )

It's always nice to be reminded that you can have a good detective story that consists of the detective stumping around, going door to door, following up leads, and eventually figuring out what really happened. This is what happens in the first half of this book, but in the second half, the nice puzzle that Archer thinks he has solved comes unraveled, and that works neatly as well - not least because, to figure out the right solution, Archer keeps on going door to door and following up leads. There's a short detour taken in the middle of the book where quite a bit of violence is exercised. It's not quite gratuitous violence - it does a good job of focusing down one possible lead that Archer is following - but still it made for a bit of silliness where some rather nasty injuries were fixed up and made good on in the course of a few days. But very solid detective fiction if you like the type. ( )

Not yet read - I'll review properly once I have read it. Just logging that I was prompted by http://litlove.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/on-ross-macdonald/#comment-55792

So many of these Lew Archers follow the same plan that it's hard to keep the details straight after a few years (or days). What remains are typically one or two well-realized locales (in this case, a run-down motor hotel) and reassuring reminder that's it's impossible to escape the past. ( )