The Galton Case

There are 18 novels in the Lew Archer series, and this is number 8. It’s one of the four chosen by the Library of America for their Ross Macdonald collection — the same four I would have picked, based on my reading of the eight so far. It’s terrific. I feel sad. It’s got to be downhill from here.

The plot is launched when an aged millionaire hires Archer, through her lawyer, to find the son who left the family under unpleasant circumstances decades before. She’s dying, and wants to reconcile first. But the man Archer turns up isn’t the missing son, but a young man who looks and sounds just like him and claims to be his son, though he grew up far away and never knew his father, the missing heir. The son seems honest enough, show more but his story is suspicious, the criminal underground seems always to be on the edge of the picture, and there are tens of millions of dollars in inheritance at stake. Is the boy a ringer in a con years in the making? And whose are the headless bones found under a housing development on the coast of the South Bay?

The mystery seems to be resolved, and the client is satisfied. But Archer wants all the loose ends tied up. He makes an ill-advised trip to Nevada and ends up in the hospital; he spends the last half of the book making people wonder how many buses he got hit by. We’ve come a long way since the first Archer book, when he was knocked unconscious three times in 36 hours only to pop up repeatedly like an inflatable punching bag. He’s become a believable character. The tolerance for gray moral areas he picked up in the last book, The Doomsters, has stuck, too, and serves him well.

As with the previous two books in the series, I’d be happy to read this book again, just a few days after finishing it. The book’s plot is complex and ingenious, and the resolution throws a new light on everything that led up to it. And while elements of the story are grim, it’s not nihilist-bleak; it even ends, literally, on a hopeful note. show less

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 show more 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. show less

Unexpected gem of a book. Lew Archer is hired to find the long missing son of a very rich woman. The case has twists and turns galore as well as a detective that manages the hard boiled thing while still making me like him. A great classic mystery

Quite a twisted and elaborate plot, but satisfying. Archer takes the worst beating I've seen a noir detective take and all the players are connected. At first it seemed too easy with clues and facts seeming to fall into his lap. I should have been suspicious, but alas, he got me. Not that I didn't enjoy it.

A continually dark, unwinding tale, beginning at an opulent LA estate and ending in a dark Midwestern boarding house. Felt by many to be the Archer novel where Macdonald found his voice and themes, his peculiar patch of the past. Superb.

I was expecting much better based on the reviews. In my opinion, Macdonald's previous novels are all superior--something about Lew Archer, as he drifts on into the sixties, just seems sort of out of place. I made the mistake of jumping to the end of this series ("The Blue Hammer") and thought that one even worse. The plots are high-quality, make no mistake, but the gorgeous set pieces of the earlier novels begin to disappear, and the novels are increasingly populated by hippie-dippie dopes instead of the hard-boiled femme-fatales and thugs that made the earlier books such fun. As I said, just my opinion, which is obviously not shared by many reviewers with far more discriminating tastes.

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 show more Brown Jr. deserve his share of the pie? Of course there are many, many more twists and turns to this mystery! show less