The Drowning Pool

It begins with a blackmail letter and an extremely close-mouthed client. Maude Slocum has been sent a letter threatening to inform her husband that she had an affair, and she wants our protagonist, Lew Archer, to find out who sent it. Trouble is, she won't give him any actual useful information to work with, and she won't let him quit the case. Eventually he does find something to investigate: Maude's mother-in-law is found dead in the backyard pool, and she leaves a vast estate, so no shortage of motives for murder.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere in this book. The back cover describes it as "a moral wasteland of corporate greed and family hatred", and it certainly does have a seamy underbelly sort of feel. The final showdown especially show more is very macabre and chilling. Archer is perhaps a bit softer around the edges than I've seen in later installments -- this is only the second book, and there's mention of an ex-wife, Sue, from whom he seems to have been only recently separated. Or at least that is one chink in his armour I haven't encountered before.

As for the plot, it certainly kept me turning the pages at a fast pace. I am not sure how well it holds together at the end -- a more careful reader might find issue with how everything shakes out -- but the main thing about this book is that it's a tasty slice of California noir. If you haven't tried Archer, this might be a reasonable place to start, since it's an early installment in the series. show less

MacDonald's great strengths—wry narration and dialogue, vivid characters, wild yet tight plotting—are here, as are some annoying weaknesses: contempt for ordinary flawed humanity, narrative drooling over every female character between 16 and 40, and a preposterous closing act with villains seemingly out of the Dick Tracy comic strip and a pointless brawl. Also some less than nuanced portrayals of gay characters, but I'm inclined to overlook the blindnesses of of my grandparents' generation, as I hope my own might be overlooked by people of future generations. This is a good hard-boiled mystery, but perhaps I wasn't in the mood. I experienced it as an awful book partially redeemed rather than as a great thriller dragged down by bad show more authorial choices. I give it four stars because MacDonald stands so far above today's thriller writers such as Connelly and Child. but I recommend that new readers start with #3 in the series, The Way Some People Die, and skip the first two, of which this is the second. show less

Re-visiting the Lew Archer novels in sequence, this second installment is a marked improvement on the first. Better characterizations, better plot, a little less philosophical talking, same great descriptions of people, places, and things. Really good 1950 Southern California feel to it.

Though this is the third of Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer novels that I’ve read, it’s the first one from the early years of his series. As such it was an especially interesting read, as I could see all of the elements that I’ve come to enjoy at an early stage of their development. Not only did it help me to better understand the formula to his stories that is emerging from my reading of Macdonald’s works, but it also highlighted the differences between the books and how his style changed over the years. This was all on top of my enjoyment of the book itself, of course, in which Archer is asked to investigate a case of blackmail that leads to murder and the unveiling of long-kept family secrets: in short, everything that I’ve show more come to enjoy in an Archer novel. show less

“Everybody hates detectives and dentists. We hate them back.”

“Sex and money: the forked root of evil.”

Mrs. Slocum is found drowned in her swimming pool.
Who did it? The oil company that wanted her land to drill? A family member who wanted that oil money? Or a hanger on? Lew Archer is on the case! And it's a pretty good one, with an unexpected ending (for me!).

“The happy endings and the biggest oranges were the ones that California saved for export.”

After you've read Hammett and Chandler, Ross Macdonald is the obvious next choice in the "hardboiled" genre. He is a very worthy successor to them, superior at times. I love his style of prose, it is fun just reading his books. His style may be equal to Rex Stout. "The Drowning Pool" is the second in the series and is filled with interesting characters and a few plot twists. If you haven't read Macdonald, read them in order, he gets even better with later books. His "Archer" character evolved over time and became more interesting and sympathetic.

Liked this book a lot. (Audiobook listen.) Lew Archer is a good man. Hard to always know what the mystery was here. But in the end, the book revealed that it was a real one. Archer always perseveres. Even without money or someone pressing. I like this. Also like the ambiance of LA in the late 40s. Just before LA became LA--so much more possibility in these stories. A smaller more manageable world overall.