Her breasts moved against me like wild things caught in a net.
#57: Find a Victim by Ross MacDonald:Yanonali Street bent north at the city limits to join a state highway. A pair of two-story stucco buildings stood in the angle of the roads. One was the El Recreo Pool and Shuffleboard Arcade. Men and boys brandishing cues moved in its smoky green light like heavy-footed spearfishers walking on the floor of the sea. On the roof of the other building, a high-heeled slipper outlined in yellow bulbs hinted broadly at women and champagne gaiety. Some of the bulbs were missing.
Synopsis: In the middle of Nowhere, California, Lew Archer stops for a hitchhiker who's been shot. So he sticks around and asks some questions.
So right off the bat, you should know this is one of the darker Ross MacDonald novels Ive read, and I include The Ivory Grin in that count. Find a Victim includes, in no specific order, rape, incest, gang rape and murder. Many murders. And a lot of blousy, used-up women blurring round the edges and scheming for their next fix. On the plus side, it also has strong, effective and determined old people, which are sort of in short supply. (Think the grandfather in "Lost Boys").
Lew Archer is the kind of guy who sees a hitchhiker bleeding in a ditch and stops his car to pick him up. And that does have a tendency to get him involved in the kind of investigation where the sheriff tries to kill him (twice), women sob on his shoulder and he has to drive up to a mountain lake and listen to conflicting accounts of a missing young woman made to dig her own grave.
Or was she????
It's a very dark book. Let's get that out of the way. Very dark. There are no happy endings--or beginnings, either. But it's also a really fascinating look at post-war deserted California, and the things people would do to make ends meet, not to mention pass the time.
It's not going to be everyone's shot of bourbon, frankly, but if you like authentic noir, this is a very solid entry in MacDonald's body of work.
Synopsis: In the middle of Nowhere, California, Lew Archer stops for a hitchhiker who's been shot. So he sticks around and asks some questions.
So right off the bat, you should know this is one of the darker Ross MacDonald novels Ive read, and I include The Ivory Grin in that count. Find a Victim includes, in no specific order, rape, incest, gang rape and murder. Many murders. And a lot of blousy, used-up women blurring round the edges and scheming for their next fix. On the plus side, it also has strong, effective and determined old people, which are sort of in short supply. (Think the grandfather in "Lost Boys").
Lew Archer is the kind of guy who sees a hitchhiker bleeding in a ditch and stops his car to pick him up. And that does have a tendency to get him involved in the kind of investigation where the sheriff tries to kill him (twice), women sob on his shoulder and he has to drive up to a mountain lake and listen to conflicting accounts of a missing young woman made to dig her own grave.
Or was she????
It's a very dark book. Let's get that out of the way. Very dark. There are no happy endings--or beginnings, either. But it's also a really fascinating look at post-war deserted California, and the things people would do to make ends meet, not to mention pass the time.
It's not going to be everyone's shot of bourbon, frankly, but if you like authentic noir, this is a very solid entry in MacDonald's body of work.