You Live Once

Overall this is a great noir crime thriller. It's plot and tone remind me of Ross Macdonald's work--twisted family secrets slowly coming to light. The protagonist, Clint Sewell, wakes one morning after a night out with a wild acquaintance to finder her dead and strangled with his own belt in his closet. He spends the rest of the novel trying to prove his innocence.

This is a real page turner with a slightly grittier hard-boiled style that we usually get from John D.

It does come with is usual flaws-- the main character suddenly declares eternal love for another character and she reciprocates immediately despite their having no prior romantic relationship. They declare their desire to be married and have tons of babies and blah blah show more blah. John D. would have been a much better writer if he left his ideas of romance, manliness and womanhood out of his works, or at least toned them down to levels that wouldn't make a hack romance author blush.

Additionally a cop who routinely beats confessions out of suspects is portrayed as a decent guy who is just doing his job the way he sees fit--another MacDonald trope.

Still, the meat of the story is, as usual, strong enough to overcome the author's dated moralizing and attempts at romance. show less

Sub-par MacDonald story about a man caught up in a murder that involves his boss and various other members of the upper class of a small company town. Too reminiscent of other, better done MacDonald novels, as the protagonist is a factory manager with an adoring secretary (and has to fend off a few other women as well.) Like many MacDonald first-person narrators, he is a pretty smart guy who does really really stupid things. Nevertheless, he thinks he is smarter than he really is (as, I have decided, does MacDonald himself.) Perhaps this is the result of a Wharton/Harvard Business School education and the ability to turn out thousands of words a day.

The major failure of this book is a lack of suspense. It looks like things will pick up show more with about 50 pages to go, but the protagonist's predicament is too easily resolved and the climax lacks punch. In MacDonald's best work, the all-knowing author's supposed insights into female psychology flow by much easier than they do in this by-the-numbers plot. show less

Another story of adultery leading to death, an innocent man charged with murder, and his attempts to clear himself and find out who really did it.

MacDonald's Harvard MBA shows through in this one. The hero is an executive at a machine plant, and there's a description of the track that mid-1950s manufacturers put their managers on; the moves from town to town and the suburbs those folks and their families moved into (Levittown gets a mention).

It's a good quick read, with a likable hero and a charming girl.

I didn't guess the Villain this whodone it until it jumps out and hit me. Everyone from the protagonist on is under suspicion. The relation between the protagonist and the leasing female characters is dated in many ways. For instance the elderly female landlord who evicts an unmarked female renter nature she lets a man into her room.

Cliff Sewell is framed for the murder of a promiscuous lady half the town wanted dead anyway.