Ross Macdonald (1) (1915–1983)

From the looks of other reviews, mine is a minority viewpoint, so be warned: but I found the first two-thirds of this book boring—something I would never have said about any of the previous eight books in the Archer series. The main characters are flat and uninteresting. The minor characters are (mostly) described without the zing that I'm used to supporting characters getting in other of Macdonald's books. The commentary is cookie-cutter wry rather than witty or surprising. And too many conversations read like depositions.

Then, around chapter 20, the author wakes up and remembers who he is. The characters start to live like real people and the similes start to fly like they should in a good noir thriller:

"A fuller moon than last night's was rising behind the trees. It gleamed through their branches like a woman's breast pressing against wrought iron."

"I glanced up at her tense small face: she looked like a bunny after a hard Easter."

The solution starts coming into place and it's admirably complex, surprising, yet right and believable. A four-star ending after a three-star beginning.… (more)

Many critics consider this to be Ross Macdonald's finest book, and Macdonald himself professed to agree...perhaps because of the general consensus among critics. I love his work, and this is a good book, but it's not in my top three (The Wycherly Woman, The Chill and The Underground Man, in that order). The fact is that critics are partial to Black Money because it nods self-consciously to Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and such allusions are considered the height of sophistication in the literary world. In a very real sense, Macdonald wrote this novel for the critics after a couple of them had disparaged certain elements of The Chill. Artists are sensitive, and I guess it's not surprising that Macdonald responded to criticism by trying to prove that he could produce a "serious" book, but he needn't have bothered. He was already a first-class writer, and didn't have to demonstrate that to a bunch of stuffy literary people whose readership was a tiny fraction of his own. Like I said, Black Money is good, but I think Macdonald may have overvalued it a little falsely. (Even as he proclaimed this his best novel, however, he had to concede that The Chill contained his finest plotting.) Also, there are a few instances of editorial sloppiness--a rare phenomenon in Macdonald's oeuvre--which deny this book a place among the top tier of his work, in my opinion.

The back cover synopsis for Bantam's 1973 paperback edition tries hard to convey the impression that Macdonald had suddenly turned into Mickey Spillane, and is downright hilarious: "Lew Archer made a deal with fat little Rich Boy at the posh Montevista Tennis Club. Seems Rich Boy had lost his beautiful fiancée to a stranger with a suspiciously phony French accent. So Rich Boy hired Archer to retrieve the runaway fiancée. Sounded like a fast, clean bundle for old, broke Archer..." You have to wonder who wrote that. (It certainly wasn't Macdonald.) Maybe the publisher was apprehensive about the book's literary pretensions and felt the need to compensate with an overtly hard-boiled teaser?

Black Money is a standard Archer novel in nearly every measurable sense. (And it happens to contain one of Macdonald's most painfully beautiful sentences: "His expression turned faraway, further and further away, as if his mind was climbing back over the curve of time to the source of his life.") The casual reader probably won't even notice the allusions to Gatsby, and those who have enjoyed Macdonald's other books will like this one, too. But it's emphatically not the best thing he ever wrote.… (more)

Start the year off with a bang! I had picked this up in a bookshop on a whim last month. I had never heard of the author nor the book, but the tagline referencing Hammett and Chandler meant I could not pass it up.

Fast-paced and well-plotted, with a resolution that had me yelping out loud in disbelief (in a good way!) I foresee more MacDonald in my future. And maybe more hardboiled private eyes too. I shall have to browse the Edgar list more carefully.

Aside 1: Has the golden age of hardboiled detectives passed already or are there some great modern ones? Did they just evolve into something new, like Scandinoir, which are much darker and intentionally uglier? Is it even possible in the internet age to have these sorts of gritty yet light, bantery run-arounds?

Aside 2: whilst I was reading this, my partner had been in the middle of his first Sue Grafton. Since it's been a couple of years since I wiki'd Grafton, I thought I'd brush up. And lo and behold in the opening paragraph: "she said the strongest influence on her crime novels was author Ross Macdonald." What synchronicity.… (more)