The big event of the year is back! It’s the Reprint of the Year contest, as run by our own Golden Age Queen & Social Secretary Kate Jackson. ‘In a nutshell, participating bloggers have to nominate two classic crime/mystery titles which have been reprinted this year as an ebook, physical book or audio book.’ Then everybody votes, and Kate announces the results.
For more on all this see her blog at
I blogged on At the Sign of the Clove and Hoof last time – this is my second choice:
The Drowning Pool by Ross MacDonald
published 1950
I tried to pick two very different books – one set in an English village, the other southern California, and indeed the two tales do not have much in common.
The Drowning Pool was the second of Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer books,
featuring his Californian private eye. A couple of the books have featured on
the blog.
Most recently I said this: These days I am surprised to find
that if I want to read about a Southern Californian private eye (and, of
course, I do) then it will be Macdonald and Archer rather than old favourites
Chandler and Marlowe. To me these books have stood the test of time more
convincingly than Raymond Chandler –
and I never thought I’d be saying that.
(I should also have said then that Sue
Grafton’s Kinsey MIlhone is another great Californian PI)
I don’t think I’d read this one before and my feeling would
be that MacDonald got better later on:
you can see a lot of his continuing themes here, but I found it a touch uneven, with some
undigested chunks of violence in it. But still – imperfect Ross MacDonald is
better than many other writers…
The initial setup is of a woman visiting Lew Archer in his
office and asking for help:
If you didn’t look at her face she was less than thirty, quick-bodied and slim as a girl. Her clothing drew attention to the fact: a tailored sharkskin suit and high heels that tensed her nylon-shadowed calves. But there was a pull of worry around her eyes and drawing at her mouth. The eyes were deep blue, with a sort of double vision. They saw you clearly, took you in completely, and at the same time looked beyond you. They had years to look back on, and more things to see in the years than a girl’s eyes had. About thirty-five, I thought, and still in the running.
a cliché, yes, but so
well done and promising great things. She has received a poison pen letter
threatening to tell her husband what she is up to. She lives a claustrophobic
life with her mother-in-law (who holds the purse strings) husband and daughter
in a small town. She is plainly scared of any upset, and imposes absurd rules
on Archer.
When he starts to investigate, a local amateur dramatic
company takes (and how else can I put it?) centre stage. Splendid: I thought we
might be in similar territory to Janice Hallett’s highly enjoyable The
Appeal (a crime bestseller from a few years ago, with follow-on book The Christmas Appeal out now), and there is one busy and
action-filled scene in the theatre. Next
there is a drinks party at his client’s home, set up for the amdram group.
She was dressed to attract attention in a black-and-white-striped linen dress with a plunging neckline and a very close waist. I gave her attention.
And there is a great line from the playwright:
I’ve sought a rather difficult
beauty, you know.
This event is also one of difficult beauty, one might say, full
of action, and death, and complex scenes, and home truths. It would be climax
of any other book, but this is just to get us started... though disappointingly
this is more or less the end of any consideration of the amateur dramatic
group.
From now on Archer is
mooching around tracking people down with some beautiful and not-so-beautiful
blondes, women at the edges of society. There are many scenes in nightclubs or
late-night bars. There is a young chauffeur to contend with. You don’t feel you
are expected to solve the crimes.
Archer is the same person he is in all the other books. He
is asked:
‘Don’t you ever weary of the
soul-destroying monotony of the weather?’
Only of phonies, I thought. Of the soul-destroying monotony of phonies I wearied something awful.
And nothing in the eventual explanation of the plot will
surprise a regular reader.
MacDonald was starting as he meant to go on. I find the
Archer books mesmerizing and irresistible, and even though this isn’t the very
best one, it is still a great book. I would recommend it for your votes for
reprint of the year…
Striped dress from Clover Vintage.
Woman in the white blouse – whom, as I say above, I felt very much had the
look of any MacDonald woman of the time
– is from the Library of Congress Toni Frissell collection.
Macdonald had a unique style, Moira, and his work really does depict Southern California realistically for the times in which he wrote. I like his stories, too, in terms of plot, but honestly, it's the sociocultural setting and the characters that keep me reading his work.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree with you more, and I think you know Southern California yourself so your opinion matters even more!
DeleteYou can see what Hollywood thought everyone in the novel looked like, for there is a movie of it, with Paul Newman playing Lew Archer and Melanie Griffith playing somebody's unsatisfactory daughter.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, the Library of America has brought all or most of MacDonald's novels back into print.
When I first decided to write about this book I fully intended to watch the film too, but time ran away with me, and I failed even to mention the film. Thanks for the reminder, I will try to find it...
DeleteI haven't read a book by this author yet. It is interesting how you chose contrasting reads, yet interestingly poison pen letters are linked to the village mystery. Poison pen letters as a trope can be surprisingly versatile when it comes to the settings of mysteries.
ReplyDeleteOh very good point Kate, I hadn't been alert to that! I did a week's worth of entries on poison pen in crime books a few years ago (well if you insist - this is the roundup post with links https://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2014/09/thursday-list-books-about-poison-pen.html ), but feel I could do another week's worth with subsequent reading, they keep coming. Do you think the incidence of poison pen is in fact much higher in crime books than in real life....?
Delete