He encounters an angry young man called George Wall at the gate – the action kicking in almost before the end of the first page – and once he’s inside the building the club manager, Clarence Bassett, explains what the disturbance is all about. [By] Ross Macdonald. 190p. I like the hardboiled tone, lush California setting, and snappy dialogue. You can always rely on a few great scenes, and Archer’s dialogue with his scriptwriting friend is wonderful, but there are some lulls along the way. To him, it was a serious vocation. The beautiful, high-diving blonde had Hollywood dreams and stars in her eyes but now she seems to have disappeared without a trace. “She said surprisingly, in a voice as thin as a flute: “A taste of whiskey had changed her mood, as a touch of acid will change the color of blue litmus paper.”. In The Barbarous Coast, tough, thoughtful private eye Lew Archer pursues a girl who jackknifed too suddenly from high diving to high living. He does things I don't understand. A girl is missing and Archer sets out to find her. Set in 1956 America, the tone and style of Ross Macdonald murder mysteries featuring the detective Lew Archur is similar to a Raymond Chandler novel. The manager knows who the man's wife is but swears he has no idea of her whereabouts. Macdonald, Ross, 1915-1983 imprint. But perhaps it’s fitting that such a crime-writing great should be best known by his alias. Enjoyed this like all his others, though not as good as, The was another very cleverly written and conceived plot in the detective mystery Lew Archer series. And the way MacDonald paints the dark side of Hollywood feels just right: so many dreams have sadly ended much too early, as they do in "The Barbarous Coast", a title perfect for the contents. I found "The Barbarous Coast" of lesser quality: it seemed to me the plot was, well, all over the place with too many characters popping in and out of the story, some of them even feeling unnecessary to the central story, as if MacDonald was trying to stretch this one out. This item: The Barbarous Coast (Lew Archer Series) by Ross Macdonald Paperback $15.00 Only 19 left in stock (more on the way). An example: "...Miss Seeley came in.... She was a little older, a little thinner. On a Barbarous Coast: What if there was an alternative ending to Captain Cook's story? Grover Gardner is so great narrating as Lew Archer. And Ross MacDonald is a worthy successor to Raymond Chandler in the Los Angeles P.I. His books are marvelously plotted, well written, and speak to issues of family, friendship, and how old wrongs can return to create pain and chaos. Collins Fontana [1972] description. A murder on the fringes of gangland leads to blackmail, intrigue and further deaths. Good, but the pacing seemed a little off. He was truly one of the great American mystery novelists - in fact, like Hammett and Chandler, he deserves to be one of the great American novelists. But rather than be knocked cold, I was knocked alert (that's not too clever), but you get the point. The Barbarous Coast is a hipster Hollywood sleaze mystery classic that has to be read to be believed: Ross McDonald tells a story of boxers and pool tramps bought and sold by Hollywood studios while movie studio dicks enforce damage control over their pilled-out and drunken stars while gangsters hustle men for sexual favors and rich wives foam at the mouth from Demerol seizures. The uniformly strong nature of the Lew Archer novels make it kind of pointless to write much about any specific one. If there was one author that brought me to that it was Ross Macdonald. The manager of an exclusive country club frequented by big-shot Hollywood types hires Archer to protect him from a "maniac' who claims that the manager stole his wife. Originally published in 1956, The Barbarous Coast has PI Lew Archer nosing around Malibu, looking for a freaked-out Canadian’s wife, a high-diving bombshell, Hester Campbell (in the vein of Esther Williams, for those who might not get it). In many ways Macdonald’s Lew Archer is the archetypal private eye, quick tongued and always struggling to stay on the right side of the law. The average population for towns on the Wild Coast is around 6,000. Ditto for the leading authors of the genre Hammett, Chandler, and Ross MacDonald. I am amazed that MacDonald seems to have fallen out of the mystery pantheon. Quite a bit of murder actually. There are no "cities" on the Wild/Barbarous Coast, just "towns" which fall between village and city for population figures. He creates a panoply of varied, credible and convincing characters. If you haven’t stepped inside this noir-ish world before then here’s a brief rundown of what to expect: hot-headed gangsters, scheming women, smart-talking detectives, guns, seedy motels, under-the-table business deals and more than one murder. In The Barbarous Coast, tough, thoughtful private eye Lew Archer pursues a girl who jackknifed too suddenly from high diving to high living. He creates a panoply of varied, credible and convincing characters. This book sneaked up on me like an Archer nemesis with a sap. Archer soon finds himself emerged in a web of stories told by Hester, which draw Archer to an unsolved murder involving a friend of Hester’s, a young ex-boxer turned aspiring actor, and a movie mogul in a partnership with a mob boss. This book was the one that clicked for me, though I read all of the Lew Archer series, many times over. I'll definitely read more of Ross MacDonald. Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes while you read The Barbarous Coast. Her tailored pinstriped. I don't know what I'll do after I read them all. The themes are all very adult, gory and risque for the 1950's but without being explicit. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Why not? I recently read this author's "The Way Some People Die" and thought the writing and plot very good. Given that the last Archer novel I read was ‘The Wycherly Woman’, a book I found more than somewhat dispiriting in its depiction of damaged people doing damaging things to each other, this was something of a relief. I hadn't read a Ross Macdonald for many years, and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Another great Lew Archer detective story from Ross Macdonald. What's wrong with a novella? Luckily he doesn’t have to. I found "The Barbarous Coast" of lesser quality: it seemed to me the plot was, well, all over the place with too many characters popping in and out of the story, some of them even feeling unnecessary to the central story, as if MacDonald was trying to stretch this one out. Obstructed by secrets and opposed by thugs, Archer untangles in the hope of saving the lives of those enmeshed—including his own. I read this while juggling a couple of other books, and as a result got lost a bit in the plot. Macdonald's evocation of California and post-war angst opened my eyes to my own potential as a fiction writer. Read a sample Read a sample Description; Details; Reviews; The beautiful, high-diving blonde had Hollywood dreams and stars in her eyes but now she seems to have disappeared without a trace. The book is both extremely readable and well-written. Her tailored pinstriped suit emphasized the boniness of her figure. To see what your friends thought of this book. Beginning, I would argue, with The Doomsters (1958) and certainly by The Galton Case (1959) Macdonald definitively established a voice independent of the Chandler-Hammett tradition. In. According to the latest scientific research sharks can smell a drop of blood in a volume of water about the size of a backyard swimming pool (Google is your friend). Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa 's Atlantic seaboard and even to the eastern coast of South America with Brazil , [5] and into the North Atlantic Ocean as far north as Iceland , but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. 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