Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Apr 08, 2011

Dan rated it:

Millionaire Ralph Sampson has been kidnapped and it's up to Lew Archer to find him. But what does the kidnapping have to do with an aging astrologer-actress, a piano player, and a holy man Sampson once gave a mountain to?

The Moving Target was a fast-paced noir thriller. Archer kept getting deeper and deeper into trouble. The love triangle between Miranda Sampson, Albert Graves, and Allen Taggart seemed to be needless at first but proved to be a very important plot element. One th More...

5 comments like (11 people liked it)

Oct 12, 2011

Charles Dee rated it:

This was my first Lew Archer book, as it was its author's. MacDonald is considered the heir of hard-boiled detective novels after Hammet and Chandler. Perhaps because this one was written in 1949, it seems especially close to its predecessors. Southern California. Wealthy people. Creepy people. Beautiful people. Corruptible people. Losers from the word go. They are all here and they all play their roles.

MacDonald is credited with bringing more psychological depth to the genre, I didn't More...

1 comment like

Aug 01, 2009

RandomAnthony rated it:

The Moving Target is the second Ross Macdonald book I’ve read this summer (Instant Enemy was the other). I still don’t know much of Mr. Macdonald outside of his brief bio and cool, lean cop-meets-journalist-meets insurance salesman jacket picture, but I want to learn more. His The Moving Target is the rare book that both validates and transcends its genre.

Macdonald’s (anti)hero, Lew Archer, is a private detective with all the expected private detective characteristics (few friends, More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 27, 2011

Ian rated it:

I've been eager to take Ross Macdonald for a spin. It's part of my ongoing flirtation with detective stories of the 30s-50s, which is itself part of my larger (newfound) fascination with the elements of noir fiction. Macdonald's Lew Archer novels came highly recommended to me by folks who are both better read and more knowledgeable than I. (Not exactly a rare combination, I admit.)

The story here is straightforward. Plotwise, it didn't throw any surprises to me, particularly after r More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 27, 2010

Philip rated it:

Although I've been aware of Ross Macdonald for much of my life - my mother was a mystery reader, and Macdonald's books were a familiar sight around our place, along with Christie, Stout, Gardner and others - I've never actually read one of his books. He's kind of been 'present' lately, as I just finished my third book by his wife, Margaret Millar, and had also been reading up on both of them. Then today at a used bookstore I chanced upon a 1949 hardcover copy of THE MOVING TARGET, the first Le More...

0 comments like

Feb 03, 2012

Jonathan rated it:

Have you ever read a book with which you deliberately took your time so that it wouldn’t be over as quickly? Did you painstakingly read each word to make sure you had fully digested each and every literary morsel because you knew that you would never have a chance to read those words for the first time ever again?

I have. I blame it on an essay I had to read in college, something about the “original experience” of discovering a particular work of art. I can’t remember who wrote i More...

0 comments like

Nov 13, 2011

Joy rated it:

The Steve McQueen movie Harper colored my perceptions of this as I reread, especially the Shelley Winters role, so I doubt I perceived it the way Macdonald wrote it. Miranda Sampson and the guru Claude especially are more interesting characters in the book. Miranda's father is missing and there's a letter demanding money, but anybody including Mr. Sampson could have written it. People keep surprising us because they have such depths.

In a way this is a period piece because Macdonald n More...

0 comments like

Aug 01, 2011

Randy rated it:

The first Lew Archer novel.

Archer is hired by a woman to find her millionaire husband, who has been missing for a couple of days. He'd wandered off, drunk, when the chauffeur went to bring the limo around at the airport. He had a habit of doing such and the last time he'd given away a mountain with a hunting lodge to weird old religious freak. See, he was into astrology and such. The wife wanted him found before he did something else stupid.

Not having much luck, a letter arri More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 21, 2012

Andrew rated it:

Ross Macdonald is the unjustly under-rated third member of the holy trinity of hardboiled detective fiction--and at his best he's better than Hammett and Chandler. This first book in the Lew Archer series isn't his best by a long shot, but all the elements are in place that would make him great later on: well-drawn characters, crisp and competent prose, and the thing that sets him above his predecessors, a tightly plotted mystery. A worthwhile read if you're a genre completist, but if you want M More...

0 comments like

Oct 27, 2011

David rated it:

And so the torch is passed from Chandler/Marlowe to Macdonald/Archer. The first Lew Archer book written by Ross Macdonald and the basis of the film "Harper" with a miscast Paul Newman as Archer. The film also made the mistake of having Archer's ex-wife as a character.

With the introduction of Archer come the sappings. At one point Archer, in a fog, says, "Two sappings in three days makes Jack a dull boy." I'm surprised that post-concussion syndrome symptoms didn't More...

0 comments like

May 04, 2010

F.R. rated it:

I’d never read any Ross MacDonald, but a recent article in The Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/01/ross-macdonald-crime-novelstext piqued my interest.

Once upon a time he was apparently ranked as part of ‘The Holy Trinity’ of crime writers alongside Hammett and Chandler. Having now read his first Lew Archer novel I’m not sure I’d place him as high as Chandler, but I was mightily impressed with what I found and wonder how I managed to miss him until now.

A More...

6 comments like

Apr 24, 2008

Jen rated it:

This novel was originally published in 1949. It is the story of Lew Archer, a private eye, hired to find a missing and wealthy millionaire, Ralph Sampson. The novel takes place in the Los Angeles, California area.

I enjoyed the plot. It was one that constantly kept you guessing. Archer is hired by Sampson's wife, who seems to be a bit indifferent to Sampson's disappearance, making her appear guilty. As characters are added to the plot, they all seem to have some characteristic More...

0 comments like

Jun 09, 2010

Kristopher rated it:

I honestly thought I would find the book to be a greater artistic achievement than its much more comic filmic adaptation. But I think the film might be the smarter, more effective work. Of course, that does not mean this first Lew Archer mystery isn't a great read, but from what I remember in Find a Victim and The Drowning Pool, MacDonald reaches higher heights later in the series. Still, this book deserves distinction for introducing the world to Lew Archer, a much more human and vulnerable det More...

0 comments like

Nov 11, 2010

Lee rated it:

Nothing like an old noir detective story on a cold evening, to make you feel your watching a black & white classic on TCM. Not too many did it better than Mr. MacDonald."The Moving Target", in his classic series about PI Lew Archer started it all. You can just smell the cigarette smoke, taste the whiskey ( cold milk in Archer's case ), see the old streets of L.A. filled with cars of the 40's. Doesn't get much better than this.

0 comments like

May 09, 2010

Vicki rated it:

I read all of Ross MacDonald's books years ago and decided to reread the Lew Archer series. Even this first one is very good, although the story doesn't connect to events that happened years ago, like the later ones do, eg. The Zebra-Striped Hearse. I'm looking forward to rereading the rest of the series.

0 comments like

May 14, 2010

Brett rated it:

This is the book that introduces Lew Archer, Ross MacDonald's long running private detective series. I can't tell you how many times I pull the book off the shelf and read the first page to someone. It's hard to compete in the world of hard-boiled private detectives, but MacDonald not only held his own when they were contemporaries, but went on to bring new life to the genre all on his own.

0 comments like

Feb 11, 2011

Aniruddh rated it:

The Moving Target is the first Ross Macdonald novel to feature Lew Archer, I'm not sure if it is the authors first novel,it is a solid crime novel; a substantial debut for any private eye. Although the novel lacks the poetry found in the works of Raymond Chandler, Ross makes up for it with colorful characters and a winding plot. The Moving Target was made into a sixties movie with Paul Newman playing the milk drinking PI, i'm yet to watch that though.

0 comments like

Apr 20, 2011

Corey rated it:

I had higher expectations. I was bored most of the time. The end wasn't that surprising. I don't want to think that all his books are like this. This is the first in the Lew Archer series so Macdonald could easily find his stride a couple books down. I'll try again some other time. Maybe it was all me. Maybe I over did the mysteries.

0 comments like

Nov 25, 2011

Eric rated it:

First Archer book is solid, but not very well planned out, and doesn't have the moral heft of Hammett or Chandler. But I'll certainly read more. This is my third Archer--they need not be read in order--and the character and plotting does get better in later books in the series.

0 comments like

Jul 02, 2011

Lynn rated it:

I didn't like this book as much as I liked the other Ross MacDonald I read, but it was pretty good. Some scenes were too derivative of others (Chandler, maybe), but overall I like his writing style and the plot was good, if twisty. It did have some laughable misogyny in it ("Women are the source of all evil"), but I don't generally let that bother me. I didn't think the writing was as crisp as it could be. But it is the first Archer mystery, and obviously his writing improves as the se More...

0 comments like

Nov 11, 2011

Amblingbooks.com marked it as to-read

"Macdonald is one of a handful of writers in the genre whose worth and quality surpass the limitations of the form."-Los Angeles Times

Listen to The Moving Target on your smartphone.

0 comments like

Jul 01, 2011

Sandi rated it:

Very enjoyable first book from a classic hard-boiled PI series. The plot moved along at a brisk pace and even though it was written back in 1949 it did not seem dated at all. Listened to the audio which was performed with just the right amount of grit by Tom Parker.

0 comments like

Apr 11, 2011

Adam rated it:

My first exposure to Ross Macdonald and Lew Archer. A good, page-turning mystery in the vein of Hammett & Chandler. Not terribly memorable, but amply enjoyable.

0 comments like

Jan 13, 2011

Allison rated it:

I read this with my mystery book group. Along with Daschiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler, Macdonald was considered one of the great masters of hard-boilded detective fiction. This title was a good example, although others in my group said it was not his best work. I loved Macdonald's description of southern California and the seediness of all his characters. None of them were nice people, even Archer was flawed, but that helped make the man. I wish I could see the movie Harper with Paul Newman a More...

0 comments like

May 11, 2011

GA rated it:

I read all of the Lew Archer stories in 1980, out of order. I wished at the time that I had started with the first and continued as they had been written. Now I plan to do just that. The Moving Target was the first. It is most famous for its being a Paul Newman movie called Harper. This was written in the late '40s, and MacDonald would get better over time. But it is still a worthwhile read.

MacDonald's problem was that he wrote the same story over and over again. His plots were More...

0 comments like

Jun 01, 2011

Elizabeth rated it:

This is the very first mystery from the excellent Lew Archer series by Ross MacDonald. It lives up to the hype!

0 comments like

Sep 07, 2011

Andrew rated it:

The first Lew Archer novel, written wholly under the thrall of Chandler. Still, a fun ride.

0 comments like

Jan 23, 2012

doug rated it:

Ah Lew Archer. Always an avuncular figure just trying to get to the bottom of all things

0 comments like

Jul 07, 2009

John rated it:

This book contains a memorable quotation. The hero, Lew Archer, is a tough private investigator. In questioning an uncooperative low-life woman, he says, "Douse the muggles, Marcie."

It turns out that muggles was a nickname for marijuana 60 years ago.

reviews