Rating: 
Summary: Intensely involving, with themes that transcend the genre
Review: Combines the hard-boiled cynicism of old-school noir writers like Dashiell Hammett with an emerging concern about the modern age; features an aging Lew Archer who is more visibly aware of his own isolation and loneliness, on the track of a missing 6-year-old boy. The themes include parallels between natural and human destruction, the gap between the generations, and the truth's use as a weapon as much as a liberator. Ripped away a day of life.
Rating: 
Summary: good but not great
Review: I came to this novel with very high hopes, having heard that it was a classic of the genre. From that perspective, I was a little disappointed. I felt that symbolism was a little heavy-handed; the book's attempt to be "literary" weighed it down a bit. Nevertheless, it is certainly a good book.
Rating: 
Summary: I gave this book a one star rating for lack of a zero rating
Review: I hate to piggyback on another reader's review but after reading Shadowskc's review, I just had to comment on this book, rather than remain just another passive reader. I too only read part of the book and found it so lacking I could not finish it. I read on the average of two books per week, so a book has to be really bad when I will not finsh reading it. The plot had some good beginnings but the characters were so trite and insipid they quickly became offensive. I am not a female chauvinist by any stretch of the imagination, but the women in this book were depicted as not being capable of a higher status than being doormats for the males in the book and unable to make any decisions without male intervention. I realize this author wrote back in the dark ages, but I have a feeling that even if he wrote during the 90's, the main character, Mr. Private Investigator, would be a gay-bashing, self-proclaimed stud, sporting a buzz haircut and camouflage tee shirt. I am sure there are enough Neanderthals out there to support this book's reprinting but I for one feel mislead by the synopsis and regret having purchased the book. If this book is consider to be a "classic" of some kind, I would think it could best be used as mandatory reading in a creative writing class as the "classic" example of how NOT to write, how to build characters not of this planet, how to destroy a potentially good plot and in the process, offend anyone with an IQ above room temperature. If you really like good suspense novels, try Ridley Pearson. He is an excellent writer who will keep you on the edge of your chair rather than on the edge of a coma as does MacDonald. Or for real "classic" character development, try Patrick McGrath.
Rating:
Summary: Don't judge this book out of context!
Review: I just happened upon this book, and I'm now a confirmed Ross Macdonald fan!
I am amazed by reviewers that revile a book written over 20 years ago because it does not match the mores and attitudes of today.
One of the charms of this book is that it beautifully captures Southern California in the 60s. I was there, guys, and women did not act or dress the way they do now. Don't judge this book out of the context of its era. Instead of being irritated because the book does not portray today's world, enjoy the ride into the past!
As for Macdonald's writing, it was masterful! With a few well chosen phrases, he sets the stage and immerses you in his world. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and look forward to reading more.
Rating:
Summary: Don't judge this book out of context
Review: I just happened upon this book, and I'm now a confirmed Ross Macdonald fan! I am amazed by reviewers that revile a book written over 20 years ago because it does not match the mores and attitudes of the 1990s. One of the charms of this book is that it beautifully captures Southern California in the 60s. I was there, guys, and women did not act or dress the way they do now. Don't judge this book out of the context of its era. Instead of being irritated because the book does not portray today's world, enjoy the ride into the past! As for Macdonald's writing, it was masterful! With a few well chosen phrases, he sets the stage and immerses you in his world. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and look forward to reading more.
Rating:
Summary: Good reading for someone with a third grade education
Review: I would not recommend anyone buy this book, even if they find it at a garage sale for a dime. The plot is fine but the characters are unbeliveable. After 60 pages I finally quit reading and gave up. At the end of 60 pages, this bozo of a PI had uncovered a murder and a kidnapping and had not yet called the police in on the case. You have got to be kidding me. I left him on a boat being held at gun point. Good place for him. There was no timeframe in the book I could find. No dates, no current events discussed. I would surmise it was in the 50's or 60's considering the way women were portrayed at wimpie little braindeads. And of course, the male detective was just ever soooo coool all the time. Stay away from this work of art, unless you like those banal, brainless and boring gothic love stories. You know the type, with the big breasted woman on the front, looking oh so distressed in front of a gothic mansion.
Rating:
Summary: One of MacDonald's best - My favorite Archer novel
Review: I'm a big fan of Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer novels, and this one's my favorite. Perhaps it's something about the way he perfectly captures Southern California during a brush-fire at the beginning of this novel, or maybe Archer's struggle to understand the generation behind his. Anyway, it's my favorite novel by one of my favorite authors.
Rating:
Summary: The Mystery Novel That Raised Detective Novels to Literature
Review: In the winter of 1972, the New York Review of Books featured this novel on its cover and proclaimed the it had won the editors over: From then on, detective mysteries would be considered literature - not just pulp fiction for the lowly masses. They had good reason. The way MacDonal writes, the story reeks of southern California in the 60's, capturing the feel of a Sunday drive through Santa Barbara and along its beaches. It also recognizes that all powerful families have dark histories that sadly repeat themselves over and over. This is the central theme; a constant in Ross MacDonald stories, but best expressed in this one. This mystery novel will not soon leave your memory bank; you will recall it fondly over and over for many years.
Rating:
Summary: A clean and well ordred detective novel
Review: MacDonald is a master of the detective novel. His hard-boiled narrator Lew Archer talks the reader through a confusing tangle of relationships in a southern California setting. Fictional detectives tend to be a self-pitying lot, and Archer is no exception to this rule, but MacDonald makes him more of a philospher than a reader might expect. Yes, he is more complex than an ex-cop private dick is supposed to be, but that is why we love to read about life through his eyes. Grab this book, put on your hat, find a nice retro diner, buy a pack of Luckys, order up a strong cup of coffee, and be prepared to be amazed.
Rating:
Summary: Dense and Provocative Fiction from a Master
Review: THE UNDERGROUND MAN begins with a touching scene that also sounds a major ecological note which can be heard at times throughout the rest of the novel. PI Lew Archer is feeding peanuts to the scrub jays that have appeared outside of his apartment when he is joined by five-year-old Ronnny Broadhurst ("The jays were all around him like chunks of broken sky."). Accompanied by his mother, Ronny has spent the night in an apartment belonging to one of Archer's neighbors. When the youngster's estranged father is murdered and the boy is apparently kidnapped, Archer's earlier chance encounter with Ronny compels him to help recover the child. Against the backdrop of a wildfire that threatens to consume the community of Santa Teresa -- MacDonald's fictionalized Santa Barbara - Archer soon discovers that the boy's disappearance is linked to yet another murder, this one fifteen-years-old, as well as to the troubled and labyrinthine histories of four local families.
THE UNDERGROUND MAN is an extremely subtle and complex story that in many ways epitomizes the best of Ross MacDonald's work. As always, Archer is far more concerned with unearthing the hidden motivations and relationships that underlie the events in the narrative than he is with merely catching and punishing the perpetrators of a crime: "The hot breath of vengeance was growing cold in my nostrils as I grew older. I had more concern for a kind of economy in life that would help preserve the things that were worth preserving."
Working against Archer, however, is a karma-like inevitability that, in a perverse sort of way, both mirrors and is mirrored by the environmental degradation that is taking place around him. The wind and rains that have finally squelched the wildfire now threaten Santa Teresa with massive mudslides. Poisoned by insecticide, the pelicans in the bay are no longer capable of reproducing. In similar fashion, the alienated and disturbed young people so prominent in this story belong to "a generation whose elders had {likewise} been poisoned ... with a kind of moral DDT that damaged the lives of their young." In THE UNDERGROUND MAN the sins of the parents are indeed visited upon their children. Sometimes, Archer laments, the best we can hope for is a kind of "benign failure of memory."
THE UNDERGROUND MAN demonstrates once again what a fine novelist Ross MacDonald truly is. This is both a profound and entertaining story whose many levels of meaning and significance can be appreciated only through a careful and thoughtful reading. (James Clar - MYSTERY NEWS)
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