Ross MacDonald – Cannonball Read 17

I’m still recuperating from The Wheel of Time

The Moving Target by Ross Macdonald

The Drowning Pool by Ross Macdonald

The Ice Harvest by Scott Phillips

February 24, 2022 by ingres77 Leave a Comment

I’ve ordered these reviews exactly opposite from the order in which I read them, just to make things slightly more confusing. The Moving Target I’m trying to review this book, but the plot has intermingled in my brain with that of The Drowning Pool. They are virtually indistinguishable from one another. It also doesn’t help that I finished this book about two weeks ago. I typically listen to audiobooks at work, but I’ve gotten kind of obsessed with the podcast Knowledge Fight, which critically examines […]

Library Bingo

The Dark Tunnel by Ross Macdonald

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Billy Summers by Stephen King

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

A Darkness More Than Night by Michael Connelly

August 9, 2021 by Jake Leave a Comment

I haven’t been able to keep up with the Cannonball Read Bingo, but I have been reading stuff for my library’s bingo, which helps because it encourages me to try things I’d either put off or left on my shelf to rot… The Dark Tunnel ** Went back to the beginning with Ross Macdonald for this one. I love Ross’ Archer series and his standalones aren’t bad but this one is. Unfocused plotting, expository dialogue, characters conveniently bouncing in and out. Macdonald was trying […]

The Case of the Missing Miss

The Wycherly Woman by Ross Macdonald

December 29, 2020 by jeverett15 Leave a Comment

Having read them out of order, this wound up as my last unread Lew Archer novel. I’m going to miss cracking open one of his cases for the first time. Ross Macdonald’s divorced ex-cop private eye might not have much in the way of distinguishing characteristics, but he’s one heck of a character just the same. Tough with a flinty intelligence and a noggin seemingly made of steel, Archer specializes in unraveling long buried family secrets and exposing especially dastardly deeds. The case of Phoebe […]

The cab turned off U.S. 101 in the direction of the sea.

The Moving Target by Ross MacDonald

October 31, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

I didn’t really know much about this book going in, but it was referenced in the PD James book “Talking about Detective Fiction” as a kind of inheritor of Raymond Chandler, and in this first book, that holds up for sure. We follow Lew Archer, a former cop turned private detective, as he’s hired to assist on a missing person, a business tycoon in Los Angeles, who has gone missing. His family–a second wife and adult daughter–are worried something has happened to him. A recent […]

Down Mexico Way

The Zebra-Striped Hearse by Ross Macdonald

February 9, 2020 by jeverett15 Leave a Comment

I’m nearing the end of my years-long dive into the Lew Archer series, and I’ve begun spacing them out to avoid finishing. The Zebra-Striped Hearse is definitely a lesser entry in the series, but there’s still much to be enjoyed. Archer himself is always enjoyable. As tough as they come and smarter than others give him credit for, Macdonald’s private eye extraordinaire finds himself on the trail of a young woman on the verge of coming into a fortune but who may be about to […]

Crime, Boy I Don’t Know

The Galton Case by Ross Macdonald

September 12, 2019 by jeverett15 3 Comments

CBR11Bingo: I Love This (Not this book specifically, but post-war California noir in general.) For a while I thought The Galton Case might be the realization of my Ideal Novel. I suppose it terribly “male” of me, but there’s nothing I like reading about more than a tough-guy private detective dealing with a rich family full of dark secrets, driving around California and occasionally getting knocked out by street-wise gangsters. Raymond Chandler is the most well-known practitioner of the form, but for my money Ross […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

Help Our Mission