ARCHER IN JEOPARDY

Rating:
Summary: Archer in Jeopardy
Review: If you're looking for a good old-fashioned mystery to read, you've picked the right book. Ross MacDonald has Lew Archer at his best with these three stories: The Doomsters, The Zebra-Striped Hearse, and The Instant Enemy.

Rating:
Summary: Three from one of the best hard-boiled thriller writers
Review: Three Lew Archer novels are included here: THE DOOMSTERS; THE ZEBRA-STRIPED HEARSE; THE INSTANT ENEMY. I've also written separate reviews of each of the three.

There's a unique story-telling technique in each case, a telling of a story tinged with tragedy and presented in who-dun-it style. Alert readers will figure out parts of these tales, but highly unlikely that they will untangle all the threads.

This is fascinating reading. The stories each have relatively innocent beginnings. A mental patient convinced that his brother, sister-in-law, and doctor are involved in his father's death and are plotting against him; a father wanting to have his future son-in-law investigated; another father looking for his runaway daughter; these are Archer's clients. However, each of these cases become much more complicated than at first appearance and each one leads to violent death. The characters involved are true-to-life. Archer himself may not appear at first to have the charisma of previous and subsequent hard-boiled detectives, but he grows on you.

If you've read Hammett and Chandler and are looking for more in the same vein but still unique, you'll enjoy Ross MacDonald.