The Way Some People Die

This is one of the early books in the Lew Archer series and therefore feels a bit fresher than some of the later books. It centres on a missing-persons case, which is a classic Archer problem to solve, and the atmosphere is well-calibrated noir. There’s violence occasionally, but no glory or glamour in it. Archer is, to me, a more deliberate noir hero. He’s contemplative and seems to really act for the sake of good without becoming too corrupted by his environment. I may be biased because Linwood Barclay, one of my favourite thriller authors, rates Macdonald as a formative influence on his own work, but of the hardboiled detective series I’ve tried, Archer is the one I’ve read the most of and the one I’ve *wanted* to read the show more most of. show less

A hard boiled detective novel in the tradition of Raymond Chandler published in 1951. Ross MacDonald's detective is Lou Archer who is a private investigator working in Southern California: the Hollywood area. This is the third book in the Lou Archer series. I was surprised that the writing was up to the standard of Chandler or Dashiell Hammett's with its arresting similes and metaphors and the story is a good one and once all the pieces of the jigsaw fit together it works very well.

As I read through the novel I did not feel the same levels of tension or suspense that I find in the novels of Chandler or Hammett, but Macdonald is equally skilled in setting a time and a place and his characters are good; perhaps Lou Archer is not quite so show more 'hard bitten' and his wise cracks not so pertinent, but somehow his character is a little more realistic. I probably need to read more of his adventures before I can be quite certain about this. An entertaining four stars. show less

review of
Ross MacDonald's The Way Some People Die
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 12, 2021

Onward w/ my Ross MacDonald spree. I cracked my rib a few days ago doing construction & that's preventing me from continuing w/ what I was building. I did so anyway for a few days but that made matters worse. So what better to do now than write reviews of seamy crime fiction? My own 15th bk is about to be released, But Not Limited To (Smattering 1), in full color & forced into a price higher than I want b/c of sd full color. I only get a tiny part of that price. Hey!, what the Heck! I only put 42 yrs into it, why shd I get anything at all? Buy it anyway, it'll be easier on you than giving up smoking.

"I took a cigarette from a pack in my show more pocket and automatically asked her: "Mind if I smoke?"

"Her face froze, as if I had suggested an obscenity. "Smoke if you must, sir. I know what a hold the nicotine habit has on its victims. Dr. Lawrence was a smoker for years, until he finally broke free, with God's help."" - p 5

That's not the same Lawrence as Lawrence of Arabia is it? The detective, Lew Archer, is interrogating a guy in a hospital rm who's been badly beaten. The guy doesn't want to answer so he gives w/ sarcasm.

""I'll tell you how it is," he said laboriously. "The other day I took a damn good look at my face in the mirror. I didn't like it. It didn't suit me. So I picked up a ball-peen hammer and gave it a working over. Is there anything else you want to know?"" - p 20

If that didn't make you SMILE than maybe this will:

"I said: "You're scared stiff, aren't you?"

"He tried to smile. The effect reminded me of a device I read about once for making insane people feel happy. It consisted of a couple of hooks that raised the corners of the mouth into smiling position. Its beneficiaries were forced to smile, and this made them feel like smiling, at least that was the theory." - pp 33-34

Did I hear you exclaim: Balderdasharoonie!! Well, check out Turner Scientific's "Smile Machine": http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/SM1992.Machine.html .

Why, MacDonald might've been writing about Turner Scientific's Waiting Room when he wrote this description:

"It had more decorations than a briefcase general: strings of colored bulbs above the bar, deer heads and stuffed swordfish, photographs of old baseball teams, paintings of cardboard mountains, German beer-mugs. On a platform over the kitchen door, an eagle with glaring glass eyes was attacking a stuffed mountain-lion. All the group needed to complete it was a stuffed taxidermist." - p 82

We get a glimpse into Archer's sad personal love life. I feel ya, Archer, but, ahem, not in that way, sorry.

"It was nearly two o'clock when I reached my section of the city. I lived in a five-room bungalow on a middle-class residential street between Hollywood and Los Angeles. The house and the mortgage on it were mementos of my one and only marriage. Since the divorce I never went home till sleep was overdue. It was overdue now. The last few miles down the night-humming boulevard I drove by muscle memory, half-asleep. My consciousness didn't take over until I was in my driveway. I saw the garage door white in my headlights, a blank wall at the end of a journey from nowhere to nowhere." - p 112

&, so, I managed to not spoil the plot for you at all. In fact, I gave you so little that, as far as you know, the way some people die is from wearing smile machines, like dogs caught in copulation. show less

Lew Archer is hired by a Mrs. Samuel Lawrence to find her daughter, Galatea, better known as Galley. According to her mother, Galley is a "good" girl. According to the nurses where she worked, Galley was rather a man eater.

One of Galley's patients, Herman Speed, introduced her to Joseph Tarantine. It turns out that Tarantine and Speed were working together on a drug scheme. Perhaps they'd stolen some smack from mob boss Danny Dowser. After his release from the hospital, Speed seems to have disappeared to San Francisco (way up north; most of this book is in the Los Angeles area). Dowser is looking for Tarantine, and tries to enlist Archer in the search.

Well, it seems that Galley married Tarantine. They live in a apartment building show more managed by Keith Dalling. Dalling was once an actor of some sorts, but he had a drinking problem. It also seems that Galley has a thing on the side going with Dalling.

Well, there are further complications, like a Mrs. Marjorie Fellows, who had her new husband run out on her shortly after their marriage and shortly after getting her to "invest" $30K with him. Just before he lit out, someone hailed him in a bar, or someplace, using a strange name. She wants Archer to find her Henry. Oh yeah, there's also a teenage drug addict, Ruth, and her pusher, Ronnie. Ronnie is a night clerk or caretaker where some of these folks hang their hats, and was once a runner for Speed. Something like that. I've probably garbled some things along the way.

Whatever, it's a somewhat complex tale of depravity, intrigue, and naturally, murder. Somehow, Archer manages not to get killed, unlike four or so other folks in this tale. But he does manage to tie up quite a lot of loose ends, and mostly, manages to retain some sense of personal integrity. A very engaging adventure. I'm beginning to rather like Ross Macdonald. show less

Every now and then, I read one of Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer mysteries. Lew Archer was a cop in L.A., until he refused to take graft, to protect politicos. Then he had to resign, so he made his career as a private detective. Archer is a modern-day white knight, gentleman, and protector of those who are vulnerable (and pretty teenage heroin addicts).
In this new Archer, a mother hires Archer to look for her daughter, galatea lawrence, who has supposedly disappeared with an Italian American gangster. Much gossip circles around this young woman, which Archer suspects is because she's beautiful. She is supposedly man-crazy, and not too discriminating in her choices. But could that be because she is attracted to Latin types? And remember, show more just because a woman is beautiful, doesn't mean she can't be deceitful.
The trail he follows leads through wrestling, heroin peddlers and addicts, and Archer is faced with some rather unsavory types. His life endangered, Archer is determined to find the truth, the "girl", and the money.
The best parts of this book is the California imagery: Palm springs, San Francisco, Santa monica. show less

I got into this book and gobbled it up enjoying myself the whole time. It was a fast paced detective story that had a twisting turning plot well written in a hard bitten style. It was about bloody murders and the heroin business which made it one of the darkest Lew Archer novels.
This time Archer is hired to find a woman's daughter. The daughter is a spectacular beauty who had married a heroin dealer and was too busy living the high life to go to see her Mom. Her husband had stolen a large amount of heroin from his boss and the woman's new husband was not who he appeared to be.
Dead bodies start cropping up, one was killed by a handgun that had been stolen from Archer. The police start talking about locking him up.
Archer goes from person show more to person asking questions. He puts the answers together with the other clues like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that slowly grows into a complete picture.
I thought the ending was exceptionally well written.

"For two hours I drove down the white rushing tunnel carved by my headlights in the solid night" is MacDonald's description of Archer's journey to the solution to the case.

Archer finds the murderer. With the siren of the police car coming for the arrest whining in the background he relates the story from beginning. He finishes as the headlights of the Sheriff's car illuminate the front windows. During the story of the killings Archer pronounces the moral of the tale. Murderers are different from other people Their minds see the death of others as solutions to their problems. They will always find a reason to kill. That is what they do. show less

The mystery is so-so. I'm not that into formulaic A-then-B-then-C-then-Hero-explains-the-whole-thing mysteries. I never cared. Still, at times the writing catches fire. Some quotes:

> The lighted clock on the tower of the county courthouse said that it was only five minutes after eleven. I didn’t believe it. I had a post-midnight feeling. My tongue was already furred with the dregs of a long bad evening. A criminal catechism ran on like a screechy record in my head. What? Blood. Where? There. When? Then. Why? Who knows. Who? Him. They. She. It. Us. Especially us.

> The kitchen was brimful of yellow sunlight that poured in through the window over the sink. I started a pot of coffee, fried some bacon, broke four eggs in the sizzling show more grease, toasted half a dozen slices of stale bread. After eating, I sat in the breakfast nook with a cigarette and a cup of black coffee, thinking of nothing. Silence and loneliness were nice for a change. The absence of dialogue was a positive pleasure that lasted through the second cup of coffee. But I noticed after a while that I was tapping one heel on the floor in staccato rhythm and beginning to bite my left thumbnail. A car passed in the street with the sound of a bus I was about to miss. The yellow sunlight was bleak on the linoleum. The third cup of coffee was too bitter to drink.

> “Yes,” he said to himself. “I am washed up.” His voice was almost cheerful, in a wry thin way. I got the impression that he had never really expected to succeed, and was taking a bitter satisfaction from his own foresight.

> I wanted to ask him questions, but the black cars started to roll. Two cars coming from the other direction joined them at the entrance to the private road. All four turned up toward the hilltop where Dowser lived, not forever.

> “You wouldn’t want to have gone along, not where he’s gone.” “Maybe I would at that.” She raised the empty shot-glass in her fist and stared down into its thick bottom like a crystal-gazer rapt in tragic visions.

> Yellow light fell like an ugly truth from the bulbs in the ceiling fixture. show less