It seems that nearly every Ross Macdonald novel involves old family secrets rearing their ugly heads. But then Mozart pretty much used only 7 different notes per octave, so it's the execution that matters, not the tools. And this story of private investigator Lew Archer trying to unravel the apparent kidnapping of a teenaged boy is, as is almost always the case with Macdonald, finely executed. ( )

Lots of twists at the end! ( )

Encargado de investigar la fuga del joven Tom Hillman de una escuela psiquiátrica para delincuentes juveniles, el curso de los acontecimientos pondrán enseguida de relieve que las cosas no son lo que parecen.

A good yarn. The story of an uptight family- with a rich controlling wife, her ex-military nervous wreck father and their messed up son who gets kidnapped- or so it seems! Turns out there is there is super surprise adoption story in there - and even once that is revealed there is a surprise twist at the very end. It's all pretty good, but a bit heavy on the hidden demons of the American family, the shouting of who's afraid of virginia woolf and the wonders and subtleties of modern psychiatry. Unexplained in the end: Lew's powerfully mixed up feelings for the woman mixed up in the all the trouble and his late love of 20 years ago. I guess that must come in lew archer #13 …. ( )

review of
Ross MacDonald's The Far Side of the Dollar
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - November 28-29, 2018

MacDonald was recommended to me by a Goodreads reader & I'm glad that I've started reading him. The 1st bk by him I read was The Chill ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2599283403 ). I've commented on the obvious that he seems to continue the lineage of Hammett & Chandler somewhat & that he's good at it. Maybe it just seems a little bit less original so it's harder for me to get excited. Maybe I'm too jaded. Anyway, I cd easily read everything by him & enjoy it. Maybe I will. MacDonald's detective, Lew Archer, is hired to find a troubled missing boy:

""I'll be frank with you, Mr. Archer," he said, and hesitated. "This is rather a prickly situation for the school. I accepted Tom Hillman against my better judgement, actually without full knowledge of his history, simply because his father insisted upon it. And now Ralph Hillman blames us for his son's esca— that is, his surreptitious leavetaking. Hillman has threatened to sue if any harm comes to the boy. The suit wouldn't stand up in court—we've had such lawsuits before—but it could do us a great deal of public harm."" - p 5

I like the touch of the schoolmaster stopping himself in the midst of saying "escape" in favor of using a euphemism. That's realistic & indicates that there're already cover-up obstacles to be surmounted.

"The grass looked disipirited even in the rain.

"So did the line of boys who were marching in the front door as I came up. Boys of all ages from twelve to twenty, boys of all shapes and sizes, with only one thing in common: they marched like members of a defeated army. They reminded me of very young soldiers we captured on the Rhine in the last stages of the last war." - p 8

Oh, the language, the language. "The grass looked disipirited even in the rain." What a great line. A cynic distinguishes himself:

""Are you the new supervisor?"

""No. I thought Mr. Patch was the supervisor."

""He won't last." A few of the younger boys giggled. The hairy one responded like a successful comedian. "This is the violent ward. They never last."

""It doesn't look so violent to me. Where is Mr. Patch?"

""Over at dining commons. He'll be here in a minute. Then we have organized fun."

""You sound pretty cynical for your age. How old are you?"

""Ninety-nine." His audience murmured encouragingly. "Mr. Patch is only forty-nine. It makes it hard for him to be my father-image."

""Maybe I could talk to Mrs. Mallow."

""She's in her room drinking her lunch. Mrs Mallow always drinks her lunch." The bright malice in his eyes alternated with a darker feeling. "Are you a father?"" - p 8

Of course, the plot thickens (b/c blood is thicker than water?):

""I'm very sorry, Mr. Hillman," she intoned. "Dr. Sponti is in conference. I can't possibly interrupt him."

""I think you'd better," Hillman said in a rough voice.

""I'm sorry. You'll have to wait."

""But I can't wait. My son is in the hands of criminals. They're trying to extort money from me."

""Is that true?" Her voice was unprofessional and sharp." - p 18

Wwwweeeelllllll, we're not exactly surprised that there's money involved, are we? Archer visits the missing boy's bedroom at his home in the company of his parents:

""I was just wondering if he hung around the harbor much."

""No. He didn't."

""Was he interested in birds?"

""I don't think so."

""Who chose the pictures?"

""I did, " Elaine Hillman said from the hallway. "I decorated the room for Tom. He liekd it, didn't he, Ralph?"

"Hillman muttered something." - p 30

MacDonald's a 'genius for understatement'. As w/ the detective, the reader has to see thru superficial appearances & claims. The missing boy's bedroom has been decorated by his mother & the decorations don't reflect his actual interests. Does that feel claustrophobic to you? The missing boy had a girlfriend, her life's claustrophobic too. She talks:

""Where is he, Mister—?"

""I don't know, Stella. My name is Lew Archer. I'm a private detective working on Tommy's side. And you were going to tell me the truth about the accident."

""Yes. It was my fault. Mother and Dad seem to think they have to cover up for me, but it only makes things worse for Tommy. I was the one responsible, really." Her direct upward look, her earnest cander, reminded me of a child saying her prayers.

""Were you driving the car?"

""No. I don't mean I was with him. But I told him he could take it and I got the key for him out of Mother's room. It's really my car, too—I mean to use."" - p 41

When I was a teenager I put my friends on the spot by asking them if they wd break a friend out of jail if they were arrested. I'll bet Stella wd've produced a YES w/ sensible qualifiers. Stella hits Archer on the head w/ a gun she always carried, surprising everyone:

"Next thing I was a V.I.P. traveling with a police guard in the back of a chauffered car. The turban I could feel on my head suggested to the joggled brain under it that I was a rajah or a maharajah. We turned into a driveway under a red light, which excited me. Perhaps I was being taken to see one of my various concubines." - p 75

Nah, I was jest joshin', STELLA wdn't do nuthin' like that — but you knew that didn't you?! I mean, you aren't that bad of a judge of character, are you?! WTF, after a while, it's more fun to construct my own narrative from these fragments. You shd just read the damned bk.

"I told the driver to let me off at the telephone company.

""You said the courthouse."

""The telephone company. We've had a change of plan."

""You should have said so in the first place."

""Forgive my failure of leadership."

"I was feeling bitter and bright. It had to do with the weather, which had turned sunny, but more to do with my decision to spend my own time on a boy I'd never seen. I didn't tip the driver." - p 82

He saved his change for the coin slots in the auto-concubines in the secret telephone booth changing room. Then he was accused of male fraud:

"I closed the venetian blind, to foil snipers, and turned on the desk lamp and went through the day's mail. It consisted of three bills, and a proposition from the Motel Institute of St. Louis. The Institute offered me, in effect, a job at twenty-thousand a year managing a million-dollar convention motel. All I had to do was fill out a registration form for the Institute's mail-order course in motel management and send it to the Institute's registrar. If I had a wife, we could register as a couple." - p 97

Does it make you feel all warm & fuzzy inside to know that con artists have had a long unbroken history of trying to get money out of naive people? No? Me either. Archer gets around & meets quite a few folks. One of them is a rather, ahem, severe Christian farmer:

""Go in the house, Martha. This man is a cohort of the Devil. I won't allow you to talk to him."

""Don't hurt him. Please."

""Go in the house," he repeated.

"She went, with her gray head down and her feet dragging.

""As for you, cohort," he said, "you get off my farm or I'll call down the punishment on you."" - p 135

You see, this farmer was raising 3 daughters & he was afraid of his wife's libertine effect on them. He was very concerned about their well being and always did his best to guard their virginities. As they entered their late teens the girls dated, and on the evening that Lew Archer arrived to question the farmer all three of the girls were waiting to go out.

The doorbell rang and the farmer mistook the detective for one of the dates. The protective father answered the door and the detective said, "Hi, my name's Lew, & I'm here to scr-" & the farmer tried to shoot him. But Archer, being a cohort of the devil, was too fast for him & managed to screw all 3 daughters while delivering a sermon to the father who he'd convinced to go kneel in a corner w/ his eyes closed & to pray.

Everyone was happy, except for the mother, who wasn't getting any, & we resumed w/ the bk review:

"She moved her eyelashes up and down a few times, to indicate shocked surprise. Her eyelashes were long and thick and phony, and they waved clumsily in the air like tarantula legs." - p 188

There was a traveling salesman who was tired & needed a place to stay. He stopped & asked a farmer if he cd sleep in his barn. The farmer sd, "Sure, but don't stick yr willy in the 3 holes." Well, men will be men & the farmer was awoken by a horrible scream. He rushed into the barn & saw the salesman w/ his dickie stuck in the 3rd hole. "What's in these holes?" the salesman cried. "Well, the 1st one's my daughter, the 2nd one's my cow, & the 3rd one's a nest of radioactive tarantulas." Do you see what I mean about bitter eloquence?:

""There never is a time or place," she said. "If there's time, you change the clocks—this is known as crossing the International Ralph Line—and suddenly it's six o'clock in the morning, in Tokyo. If there's a place, you find an escape hatch. I see your wriggling legs and then you're off and away, into the wild Ralph yonder. You never faced up to anything in your life."

"He winced under her bitter broken eolquence." - p 236

Face it, it's always 6 o'clock. ( )