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La città del diavolo
«Quando si vive lontano da una città dove si è trascorsa la fanciullezza, si pensa a quella città e se ne parla come se l'aria che vi si respira fosse più dolce che altrove. Le case della periferia cominciarono ad apparire prima che me l'aspettassi. In dieci anni, la città aveva dilagato lungo il viale principale ai cui lati vedevo una fila di villette tutte uguali» Per Johnnie Weather, la città, così diversa da come l'aveva lasciata, è il primo duro colpo che riceve ritornando a casa. Ma gli altri colpi saranno ancora più violenti. Infatti il giovane Johnnie, sebbene smaliziato, non era pronto ad accettare il dramma che aveva sconvolto la sua famiglia. L'urto, però, contro una così tragica realtà, farà nascere in lui, dopo un attimo di smarrimento, una voglia folle di scoprire e distruggere tutto il marcio che brulica sotto la città del diavolo. Ci riuscirà? Amaramente, Kenneth Millar (il vero nome di Ross Macdonald) risponderà a questa e ad altre domande, ma ne lascerà insoute altre ancora, convinto che di città del diuavolo non ce n'è una sola, ma tante, tante tante sotto il sole.
Copertina di Oliviero Berni
Copertina di Oliviero Berni
196 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1947
35 people are currently reading
284 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
March 13, 2020
Ross Madonald's third novel Blue City is better than his first two, principally because Macdonald has finally discovered how to create a narrator who doesn't sound like an English teacher. The style is almost classic Macdonald: spare, restrained, earnest and sad, with the metaphors--still literary--well prepared for and adapted to the individual speaker.
This is not a Lew Archer novel, but it is a real mystery nevertheless. Johnny Weathers returns from combat in WWII to find that his estranged father J.D., the political boss of Blue City--a town which resembles the author's home of Kitchener, Ontario--was murdered two years ago. To unearth his father's murderer, Johnny must dig up the rest of the dirt of the town, and--as you may have guessed-- there are piles and piles of it.
I found this novel interesting because, set as it is in a small, corrupt city, it reminded me more of Hammet's Red Harvest than of anything by Chandler, and it was instructive to see the old man's influence dominate for a change. It is also interesting because here, for the first time, Macdonald is grappling with serious social, psychological and economic issues which are marring the cities of America--similar to the way he incorporated environmental themes in his last novels.
No, it is not Lew Archer. But it is pretty close.
June 8, 2023
THIS IS WHY I KEEP REPOSTING OLD REVIEWS.
This is an example of a review which has disappeared. I read this, I guess maybe 5 years ago. Maybe four. I gave it 4 stars, but I know I wrote something too. I ALWAYS do.
Half my Jim Thompson reviews have gone away. I reposted the ones that didn't.
I'm not just entertaining myself. I feel I have to save what is still here.
My review of the Color Purple totally disappeared, and I read that less than two years ago. Length of time doesn't seem related..... (Reviews not dying of old age).
This is an example of a review which has disappeared. I read this, I guess maybe 5 years ago. Maybe four. I gave it 4 stars, but I know I wrote something too. I ALWAYS do.
Half my Jim Thompson reviews have gone away. I reposted the ones that didn't.
I'm not just entertaining myself. I feel I have to save what is still here.
My review of the Color Purple totally disappeared, and I read that less than two years ago. Length of time doesn't seem related..... (Reviews not dying of old age).
January 12, 2019
Πρόκειται, ίσως, για το πιο 'νουάρ' μυθιστόρημα του ΜακΝτόναλντ με 'pulp' και 'hardcore' πινελιές, το οποίο αποδίδει (εύκολα) φόρο τιμής στην αστυνομική λογοτεχνία της δεκαετίας του '20 και του '30, αφού κάλλιστα θα μπορούσε να έχει γραφτεί από τον Χάμετ ή τον Τσάντλερ - θυμίζει έντονα την παρακμιακή και διεφθαρμένη 'ατμόσφαιρα' του 'Κόκκινου θερισμού' του Χάμετ (1929).
Το βιβλίο γράφτηκε το 1947 και αντικατοπτρίζει εύστοχα την μεταπολεμική Αμερική, η οποία είναι βυθισμένη στα ένοχα μυστικά, τις θεωρίες συνωμοσίας και την δίψα για το εύκολο χρήμα και την εφήμερη διασκέδαση. Όπως καί στους 'Κυνηγούς' του Brown (1947), o πρωταγωνιστής προσπαθεί απεγνωσμένα να βρει το δολοφόνο του πατέρα του (σημαντικού παράγοντα της πόλης) αφού γυρίζει, μετά τον πόλεμο, στη γενέτειρά του μπερδεμένος και αποπροσανατολισμένος. Για να καταφέρει να βρει την άκρη του νήματος θα παλέψει με τους προσωπικούς του εφιάλτες και θα αντιμετωπίσει επίπονες εσωτερικές συγκρούσεις.
Οι αναγνώστες, στην αρχή του βιβλίου, θα έχουν, ενδεχομένως, την αίσθηση ότι ο ΜακΝτόναλντ της 2ης περιόδου (από το 1949 και μετά), κατά την οποία δημιούργησε τον ευρηματικό ντιτέκτιβ Λου Άρτσερ δεν έχει καμία σχέση με τον ΜακΝτόναλντ της 1ης περιόδου, γιατί, απλούστατα, η γλώσσα που χρησιμοποιεί εδώ είναι σκληρή, με αρκετές στιγμές αθυροστομίας και κυνισμού που δείχνουν έντονο θυμό και τάση καταγγελίας από τη πλευρά του συγγραφέα.
Πέρα από αυτό, η 'ατμόσφαιρα' της ιστορίας είναι αρκετά καταδιωκτική με έντονα στοιχεία ψυχολογικού θρίλερ, ενώ η δομή της πλοκής δεν είναι γραμμική όπως σε άλλα βιβλία του συγγραφέα. Προσωπικά, θεωρώ ότι είναι από τα σημαντικότερα δείγματα γραφής του, αφού καταφέρνει να εντυπωσιάσει με την ειλικρίνεια και τη πάλη του ήρωα με τον εαυτό του μέσα στο κλίμα απειλής και καχυποψίας της γενέτειράς του, η οποία στρέφεται εναντίον του για να τον συντρίψει. Μοναδικό μειονέκτημα, ίσως, για κάποιους θα είναι μια αίσθηση προβλεψιμότητας κοντά στην ολοκλήρωση του βιβλίου.
Το συστήνω ανεπιφύλακτα στου λάτρεις της 'νουάρ' αστυνομικής λογοτεχνίας!
Υ.Γ.: Είναι αρκετά σπάνιο πλέον και καλό θα ήταν να επανεκδοθεί.
Βαθμολογία: 4,4/5 ή 8,8/10.
Το βιβλίο γράφτηκε το 1947 και αντικατοπτρίζει εύστοχα την μεταπολεμική Αμερική, η οποία είναι βυθισμένη στα ένοχα μυστικά, τις θεωρίες συνωμοσίας και την δίψα για το εύκολο χρήμα και την εφήμερη διασκέδαση. Όπως καί στους 'Κυνηγούς' του Brown (1947), o πρωταγωνιστής προσπαθεί απεγνωσμένα να βρει το δολοφόνο του πατέρα του (σημαντικού παράγοντα της πόλης) αφού γυρίζει, μετά τον πόλεμο, στη γενέτειρά του μπερδεμένος και αποπροσανατολισμένος. Για να καταφέρει να βρει την άκρη του νήματος θα παλέψει με τους προσωπικούς του εφιάλτες και θα αντιμετωπίσει επίπονες εσωτερικές συγκρούσεις.
Οι αναγνώστες, στην αρχή του βιβλίου, θα έχουν, ενδεχομένως, την αίσθηση ότι ο ΜακΝτόναλντ της 2ης περιόδου (από το 1949 και μετά), κατά την οποία δημιούργησε τον ευρηματικό ντιτέκτιβ Λου Άρτσερ δεν έχει καμία σχέση με τον ΜακΝτόναλντ της 1ης περιόδου, γιατί, απλούστατα, η γλώσσα που χρησιμοποιεί εδώ είναι σκληρή, με αρκετές στιγμές αθυροστομίας και κυνισμού που δείχνουν έντονο θυμό και τάση καταγγελίας από τη πλευρά του συγγραφέα.
Πέρα από αυτό, η 'ατμόσφαιρα' της ιστορίας είναι αρκετά καταδιωκτική με έντονα στοιχεία ψυχολογικού θρίλερ, ενώ η δομή της πλοκής δεν είναι γραμμική όπως σε άλλα βιβλία του συγγραφέα. Προσωπικά, θεωρώ ότι είναι από τα σημαντικότερα δείγματα γραφής του, αφού καταφέρνει να εντυπωσιάσει με την ειλικρίνεια και τη πάλη του ήρωα με τον εαυτό του μέσα στο κλίμα απειλής και καχυποψίας της γενέτειράς του, η οποία στρέφεται εναντίον του για να τον συντρίψει. Μοναδικό μειονέκτημα, ίσως, για κάποιους θα είναι μια αίσθηση προβλεψιμότητας κοντά στην ολοκλήρωση του βιβλίου.
Το συστήνω ανεπιφύλακτα στου λάτρεις της 'νουάρ' αστυνομικής λογοτεχνίας!
Υ.Γ.: Είναι αρκετά σπάνιο πλέον και καλό θα ήταν να επανεκδοθεί.
Βαθμολογία: 4,4/5 ή 8,8/10.
December 6, 2024
A blurb says it all: "As tough as they come." This is one of the earlier hard-boiled detective stories by Ross MacDonald (Kenneth Millar, 1915-1983). Published in 1947, it's a standalone, not in his Lew Archer series.
Johnny Weather (great name!) gets out of the Army to return home to Blue City and find out his father has been murdered. Dad had been the boss of a political machine that had run the Midwestern city of Blue City ( a city much like Chicago). Now a new boss is running things, and, if Johnny wants to find his father's killer, he'll have to clean up the town. And, needless to say, no one likes to give up power and privileges without a fight. So the stage is set for a bloodbath...
While I enjoy these old detective stories, especially for their dialogue, I can only take so much of them in a year! I need a break and something different after this one!
3.5 stars/5, rounded up to 4.
Johnny Weather (great name!) gets out of the Army to return home to Blue City and find out his father has been murdered. Dad had been the boss of a political machine that had run the Midwestern city of Blue City ( a city much like Chicago). Now a new boss is running things, and, if Johnny wants to find his father's killer, he'll have to clean up the town. And, needless to say, no one likes to give up power and privileges without a fight. So the stage is set for a bloodbath...
While I enjoy these old detective stories, especially for their dialogue, I can only take so much of them in a year! I need a break and something different after this one!
3.5 stars/5, rounded up to 4.
October 10, 2011
"Blue City" is not a Lew Archer novel, nor does he make even a cameo appearance. Despite that, the copy I read has "A Lew Archer Novel" boldly printed underneath "Blue City" on the title page. It's also listed that way within the BPL's catalog system. So, forewarned is fore-armed, as they say.
"Blue City" was copyrighted in 1947 under the author's birth name, Kenneth Millar. It may be his first novel length work (I have not checked). During the same period he had written at least one Lew Archer short story, but it may not have been clear that Archer was to be a commercial hit with readers. Or, Millar may have been trying to develop his range.
This is a very fast-paced, frenetic story. In the space of about 48 hours a man returns to the city of his youth and father, learns of his father's unsolved murder 2 years before and several other unwelcome truths. There's little of the reflection and character psychology of the later Archer novels. Instead it's straight ahead, full speed, action almost from the first sentence. Because the protagonist is a recently mustered-out Army sergeant, one couldn't call him "hard-boiled", but his raw instinct to head immediately at the next obstacle no matter how dangerous is classic "tough guy" scripting.
One of the traits that this book shares will all of the author's longer fiction, no matter when it was written, is a very convoluted plot with a web of character connections. There's plenty of material for an eager and stubborn "hero" to uncover while trying to find out who killed his estranged father. Rather than give away any of the details, I'll only say that all of the loose ends are resolved one way or another.
Since I thought this book was a Lew Archer novel, I put it aside until I finished the run of three I have recently reviewed. Normally I would have read it first (oldest date of publication) to see how the man and his writing evolved. It was a bit of a jolt going from the very polished, but still fast-paced novels of the mid-sixties to this one written two decades earlier. If you like the rawness of what might have been a "pulp" fiction story and don't mind the often brutal violence, this is not a bad book. Just don't pick it up thinking "Lew Archer". Otherwise it's an interesting enough story even if a bit formulaic in parts.
"Blue City" was copyrighted in 1947 under the author's birth name, Kenneth Millar. It may be his first novel length work (I have not checked). During the same period he had written at least one Lew Archer short story, but it may not have been clear that Archer was to be a commercial hit with readers. Or, Millar may have been trying to develop his range.
This is a very fast-paced, frenetic story. In the space of about 48 hours a man returns to the city of his youth and father, learns of his father's unsolved murder 2 years before and several other unwelcome truths. There's little of the reflection and character psychology of the later Archer novels. Instead it's straight ahead, full speed, action almost from the first sentence. Because the protagonist is a recently mustered-out Army sergeant, one couldn't call him "hard-boiled", but his raw instinct to head immediately at the next obstacle no matter how dangerous is classic "tough guy" scripting.
One of the traits that this book shares will all of the author's longer fiction, no matter when it was written, is a very convoluted plot with a web of character connections. There's plenty of material for an eager and stubborn "hero" to uncover while trying to find out who killed his estranged father. Rather than give away any of the details, I'll only say that all of the loose ends are resolved one way or another.
Since I thought this book was a Lew Archer novel, I put it aside until I finished the run of three I have recently reviewed. Normally I would have read it first (oldest date of publication) to see how the man and his writing evolved. It was a bit of a jolt going from the very polished, but still fast-paced novels of the mid-sixties to this one written two decades earlier. If you like the rawness of what might have been a "pulp" fiction story and don't mind the often brutal violence, this is not a bad book. Just don't pick it up thinking "Lew Archer". Otherwise it's an interesting enough story even if a bit formulaic in parts.
April 10, 2020
Though I have read nearly a dozen Ross Macdonald novels, this was the first one that wasn’t in his Lew Archer series. In this one the protagonist is John Weather, a young veteran returning to his hometown after a decade’s absence. No sooner does he arrive than he learns that his father, from whom he was estranged, was killed by an unknown assailant two years before. Determined to find the murderer, Weather finds himself facing off against thugs, bent cops, and the gangster who had taken his father’s place in the political machine that dominates the city. And the deeper Weather digs, the more he risks his own life at the hands of those who are determined to prevent him from unraveling their hold on power.
While Macdonald’s most famous character is absent from its pages, the novel contains all the other elements that his readers have come to expect from his work, such as sin, corruption, and the power of a person with a firm moral compass to effect change. Yet it lacks the polish and nuance that would soon characterize his subsequent books. Nowhere is this better reflected than with his protagonist, who despite his motivation doesn’t have the depth that would characterize Archer from the start. The plotting is also clumsier than one would come to expect, with the murderer’s identity tipped off far too early in the book and with an ending that wraps everything up far more tidily and happily than one should expect in the messy world in which it’s set. Nevertheless the novel remains an interesting read, both as a glimpse into a changing postwar America and for the light it sheds on the development of one of the 20th century’s greatest mystery writers.
While Macdonald’s most famous character is absent from its pages, the novel contains all the other elements that his readers have come to expect from his work, such as sin, corruption, and the power of a person with a firm moral compass to effect change. Yet it lacks the polish and nuance that would soon characterize his subsequent books. Nowhere is this better reflected than with his protagonist, who despite his motivation doesn’t have the depth that would characterize Archer from the start. The plotting is also clumsier than one would come to expect, with the murderer’s identity tipped off far too early in the book and with an ending that wraps everything up far more tidily and happily than one should expect in the messy world in which it’s set. Nevertheless the novel remains an interesting read, both as a glimpse into a changing postwar America and for the light it sheds on the development of one of the 20th century’s greatest mystery writers.
November 30, 2020
Reunion Turns to Revenge
An out of work WWII vet returns to his birthplace with the hope of reuniting with his father and a possible job. He finds out his father remarried and then was murdered. The novel is far superior to the 1986 movie of the same name.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ap0vTr...
An out of work WWII vet returns to his birthplace with the hope of reuniting with his father and a possible job. He finds out his father remarried and then was murdered. The novel is far superior to the 1986 movie of the same name.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ap0vTr...
March 14, 2015
Πρώτη ιστορία του Ρος Μακντόναλντ που διαβάζω στην οποία δεν συμμετέχει ο ιδιωτικός ντετέκτιβ Λιου Άρτσερ, παρόλα αυτά το επίπεδο είναι το ίδιο υψηλό και, μάλιστα, παρατήρησα ότι σαν ιστορία είναι πιο μαύρη και σκληρή από αυτές με τον Άρτσερ.
Πρωταγωνιστής και αφηγητής είναι ο νεαρός Τζον Γουέδερ, ο οποίος επιστρέφει στην πόλη που γεννήθηκε και μεγάλωσε, μετά από κάποια χρόνια που πολέμησε στην Ευρώπη. Παρατηρεί ότι η πόλη έχει αλλάξει πολύ και ότι ο πατέρας του, μεγάλος επιχειρηματίας, που είχε να δει για αρκετά χρόνια, δολοφονήθηκε και ο δολοφόνος του δεν βρέθηκε ποτέ. Έτσι, έχοντας κάμποσο ελεύθερο χρόνο, θα προσπαθήσει να βρει αυτόν που σκότωσε τον πατέρα του. Όμως θα μπλεχτεί σε μια ιστορία διαφθοράς και σαπίλας, στην οποία αστυνομία, επιχειρηματίες και δημοτικό συμβούλιο είναι μες στην βρωμιά. Τελικά, θα βρει ευκαιρία όχι μόνο να ανακαλύψει τον δολοφόνο, αλλά να καθαρίσει και την μικρή πόλη από τους εγκληματίες και τους διεφθαρμένους.
Η ιστορία είναι πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα, με δράση, αρκετές σκ��νές βίας, μυστήριο, ανατροπές και εκπλήξεις και η γραφή είναι σκληρή, με λίγο βρισίδι και ατάκες που σπάνε κόκαλα. Μέσω της ιστορίας, ο Μακντόναλντ με γλαφυρό τρόπο ανέδειξε και την βρώμικη κοινωνία μ��ας μικρής πόλης, στην οποία νταβατζήδες-επιχειρηματίες και διεφθαρμένοι πολιτικοί και αστυνομικοί έχουν το πάνω χέρι και κάνουν ό,τι θέλουν.
Πραγματικά πολύ ωραίο μυθιστόρημα, με παλπ αίσθηση και νουάρ ατμόσφαιρα, που προτείνεται άνετα στους τους φαν του είδους. Το 1986 έγινε και ταινία, που όμως είναι μάλλον μέτρια και σχετικά άγνωστη, όπως βλέπω στο IMDb.
Πρωταγωνιστής και αφηγητής είναι ο νεαρός Τζον Γουέδερ, ο οποίος επιστρέφει στην πόλη που γεννήθηκε και μεγάλωσε, μετά από κάποια χρόνια που πολέμησε στην Ευρώπη. Παρατηρεί ότι η πόλη έχει αλλάξει πολύ και ότι ο πατέρας του, μεγάλος επιχειρηματίας, που είχε να δει για αρκετά χρόνια, δολοφονήθηκε και ο δολοφόνος του δεν βρέθηκε ποτέ. Έτσι, έχοντας κάμποσο ελεύθερο χρόνο, θα προσπαθήσει να βρει αυτόν που σκότωσε τον πατέρα του. Όμως θα μπλεχτεί σε μια ιστορία διαφθοράς και σαπίλας, στην οποία αστυνομία, επιχειρηματίες και δημοτικό συμβούλιο είναι μες στην βρωμιά. Τελικά, θα βρει ευκαιρία όχι μόνο να ανακαλύψει τον δολοφόνο, αλλά να καθαρίσει και την μικρή πόλη από τους εγκληματίες και τους διεφθαρμένους.
Η ιστορία είναι πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα, με δράση, αρκετές σκ��νές βίας, μυστήριο, ανατροπές και εκπλήξεις και η γραφή είναι σκληρή, με λίγο βρισίδι και ατάκες που σπάνε κόκαλα. Μέσω της ιστορίας, ο Μακντόναλντ με γλαφυρό τρόπο ανέδειξε και την βρώμικη κοινωνία μ��ας μικρής πόλης, στην οποία νταβατζήδες-επιχειρηματίες και διεφθαρμένοι πολιτικοί και αστυνομικοί έχουν το πάνω χέρι και κάνουν ό,τι θέλουν.
Πραγματικά πολύ ωραίο μυθιστόρημα, με παλπ αίσθηση και νουάρ ατμόσφαιρα, που προτείνεται άνετα στους τους φαν του είδους. Το 1986 έγινε και ταινία, που όμως είναι μάλλον μέτρια και σχετικά άγνωστη, όπως βλέπω στο IMDb.
July 25, 2018
(3.5) An early effort from my favorite mystery writer. The talent is there, even if the plot is ridiculous and the dialogue too expository. Macdonald wanted the book to be a send up of his corrupt Canadian hometown and the reader can easily see through the veiled references to “how things were run” in that area.
March 13, 2015
Another noir type novel by MacDonald. Good story line but not up to the caliber of others I have read by this author. Still enjoyed it though.
November 2, 2017
Αυτό το ωραίο, παλιομοδίτικο σκληροπυρηνικό νουάρ, το χαρντμπόιλντ ντε. Εντάξει, έχει κάμποσες απ' τις κλισεδιές του είδους, αλλά τουλάχιστον είναι απ' τα έργα και τους συγγραφείς που καθιέρωσαν αυτές τις κλισεδιές. Ενίοτε είναι και κάπως αφελές στην πλοκή του, αλλά και πάλι συγχωρείται λόγω στιλ και ατμόσφαιρας. Σαν ασπρόμαυρη ταινία με τον Κάγκνεϊ ένα πράμα. Γυρνάει ο μοναχικός άσωτος υιός ως εκδικητής στην διεφθαρμένη πόλη και γίνεται ένα λουτρό αίματος, παναγία μ', τι καλά.
January 2, 2023
Blue City is an early (1947), non-Lew Archer novel by Ross MacDonald. It’s also a great lesson in how a detective novel should be written. Classic noir with crackling dialogue and bodies turning up everywhere.
July 13, 2019
He's up there with Hammett, Cain and Chandler. This was like spending 4-5 days in a really good Edward Dmytryk movie.
April 24, 2018
pretty interesting
December 24, 2020
review of
Ross MacDonald's Blue City
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 23-24, 2020
This'll be the 5th review I've written of bks by Ross MacDonald. Hopefully, I'll be reading another 13 that I have set aside in a pile very soon. I'm reading them in chronological order, this one's from 1947. Reading it, it seemed more brutal than other work of his. That made it seem like a possible homage to Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest (my paltry review's here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38... ) insofar as their characters go to cities where they uncover massive corruption & havoc is wrought & insofar as both bks have 2 word titles the 1st word of wch is a color.
The character is introduced to the reader as a hitchhiker:
""I'll let you out here, bud. I can't take you down to the depot." He nodded toward the "No Riders" sticker on the windshield. "But in case your connections don't pan out, you want to come down there. It's on Master Street."" - p 2
I'm reminded of the beginning of chapter 2 of John Stenibeck's The Grapes of Wrath:
"Outside, a man walking along the edge of the highway crossed over and approached the truck. He walked slowly to the front of it, put his hand on the shiny fender, and looked at the No Riders sticker on the windshield. For a moment he was about to walk on down the road, but instead he sat on the running board away from the restaurant." - p 5, The Grapes of Wrath, Bantam Books, 1970 paperback edition
Do people read Steinbeck anymore? I hope they do, his bks have a social conscience to them that's profound. It seems to me that Ross MacDonald's work does too. There's a whole world of literature out there written by people who're keen social observers who have something to say about it all, I'm glad they exist.
"He looked at me in surprise, and chewed his blood-stained mustache. "Phone the police?"
""They robbed you, didn't they? They should be behind bars."
""Maybe so," the old man said. "But these fellows have an in with the poilce."
""You know them?"
""I've seen 'em around town. I think the cops brought 'em in for strikebreakers two years ago. They been here ever since."" - p 9
Remember strikebreakers? Are they a vanishing breed in the US? They might be, after all, there're always more subtle ways of making sure that working people get less than we deserve. In other countries, however, all those countries where the so-called 'Free Trade' businesspeople are so fond of locating their factories, strikebreakers are still common. At any rate, I quote the above passage to continue the thread that perhaps Steinbeck & MacDonald aren't so far apart, such a passage might've been at home in Steinbeck. & waddya know?: in the last novel I reviewed by MacDonald, his 1st: The Dark Tunnel (my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) the main character encounters a Wobbly & is, himself, accused of being an "unconscious anarchist" — so look-see what we have in this novel:
""One more thing. We recovered the murder weapon and traced it. It was an old Smith and Wesson revolver, and it's definitely the gun that fired the bullets that killed J.D. We found it in the sewer on Mack Street near the entrance to the Mack Building. Up to a certain point it was easy to trace. The daughter of the original purchaser, a man named Teagarden, sold it to Kaufman the secondhand dealer. Kaufman admitted buying it, but claimed that it was stolen from his store a couple of days before the murder."
""You investigated Kaufman?"
""Naturally. He's a shady customer all right, some kind of an anarchist or radical. He writes crazy letters to the newspapers. But he didn't kill your father.["]" - p 23
The main character, Johnny, returns to his hometown after being alienated from his family for several years, only to discover that his father's been murdered. The murder happened not long after his father remarried. Johnny visits his stepmom & quickly starts bullying her w/o really much basis for his suspicions about her yet.
""I understand I'm next in line for J.D.'s property."
""As long as I'm alive I have a perfectly free hand."
"I got up and walked towards her across the room. "Now I know where we stand," I said. "What makes you certain you're going to be alive very long?"" - p 35
Johnny visits the man called an "anarchist" by the policeman who investigated his father's murder.
""What freedom have they got?" he demanded. "Freedom to slave in the factories, vote and think the way the radio and newspapers and political bosses tell them to vote and think, freedom to befuddle their brains in the taverns and the moving picture shows: freedom to be exploited and dispossessed. Let them stand up and fight for their rights!"
""I was wondering," I said slowly, "I was wondering if J.D. Weather could have been shot by somebody who disapproved of him for political reasons."" - p 42
Not much has changed, has it? People no longer have the "freedom to befuddle their brains in the taverns and the moving picture shows" – instead they have the 'freedom' to befuddle their brains w/ expensive prescription drugs of highly dubious benefit for their highly dubious 'Generalized Anxiety Disorder' while their computer befuddles their brains w/ lies, lies, & more lies disguised as education subtexted in thrilling entertainments preapproved by one censor or another — all working for 'their own good', har, har. OR.
"I got up and said: "You're not taking a chance on me. I think some of your ideas are screwy, but you're the first honest man I've talked to here. I won't let you down."" - p 44
Honest men? Remember that concept? Our hero is both honest & tough. It seems that the 2 have to go together if one wants to survive.
""Your memory is bad." I was as tense as he was. "John Weather."
"The knife flew open as it came out of the pocket. My left hand was ready and caught his right wrist. My right arm put a lock on it. He twisted quickly and pulled hard, but not out of my grasp. He was hard to bend, but he bent slowly as I raised my hands locked over his wrist. Slowly his head went down. He sighed almost inaudibly and the knife fell free just before I tore his shoulder loose in its socket." - p 54
&, of course, our hero gradually makes sense of the picture that he's revealing.
""Don't start telling me that my father dirtied this town. Apparently he did his share, but one man can't corrupt a town all by himself. It takes co-operation."
""You're right, Weather. I saw that only too clearly after your father died. You've got to realize that he and I were political enemies for years. I fought him when I was in Cranbridge in the D.A.'s office, and I fought him when I came back here to run for the council. I began to feel that one man was holding back this town, and that he was the man. But I was wrong. He died and things went on as before. It wasn't a man I had to fight—it was a system.["]" - p 89
For one thing, Weather discovers that he's not opposed to killing.
"A cockroach stepped from behind the ketchup, gave me a quick impassive once-over, decided that I was of the Brahmin faith, and walked earnestly across the table on errands of his own. Somebody had left a newspaper on the bench beside me, and I picked it up and swatted the cockroach, permitting his soul to transmigrate into the body of a quartermaster." - pp 94-95
For another, he sees thru the lies of the mainstream narrative w/ the help of someone who knows.
"With the efficient co-operation of our excellent police force, the agitators who would have sabotaged our contribution to the national effort were weeded out and properly dealt with."
[..]
""Pretty hot stuff, eh, Mac?" the waiter said over my shoulder. "I read that one myself."
""You liked it?"
""Don't kid me." He set my plate in front of me and spat on the floor. "My old man and my old lady worked out at Sanford's for the last thirty years. They're gettin' old now, and they make less than they did when they started. My brother was there for a while, till they broke his elbow with a lead pipe and threw him out of town. He was one of the foreign agitators they were talkin' about in this story in the paper. If Bobby was a Communist, I'm Uncle Joe Stalin with bells on."" - p 96
So, you see, while this is a novel about a man returning to his home town, discovering that his father was murdered, & investigating that murder, it's also a political novel based on the notion that societal SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) can be synonymous w/ murderous corruption & hypocrisy — a notion I whole-heartedly share.
"At the far end of the room, between green-blinded windows, there was a shelf labeled: "These Books Are Not To Be Circulated." Some of the titles I noticed were Gargantua and Patagruel, The Sentimental Education, To Have and Have Not, The Wild Palms. It was somehow comforting to know that the good people of the town that supported Kerch were protected against the lubricity of Rabelais, the immorality of Flaubert, the viciousness of Hemingway, and the degradation of Faulker." - pp 142-143
& how did MacDonald himself manage to avoid being on the list? Probably because he wrote good-old-crime-thrillers. Will Unconscious Suffocation - A Personal Journey through the PANDEMIC PANIC ever be a banned bk? We're uncomfortably close to that already.
Ross MacDonald's Blue City
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 23-24, 2020
This'll be the 5th review I've written of bks by Ross MacDonald. Hopefully, I'll be reading another 13 that I have set aside in a pile very soon. I'm reading them in chronological order, this one's from 1947. Reading it, it seemed more brutal than other work of his. That made it seem like a possible homage to Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest (my paltry review's here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38... ) insofar as their characters go to cities where they uncover massive corruption & havoc is wrought & insofar as both bks have 2 word titles the 1st word of wch is a color.
The character is introduced to the reader as a hitchhiker:
""I'll let you out here, bud. I can't take you down to the depot." He nodded toward the "No Riders" sticker on the windshield. "But in case your connections don't pan out, you want to come down there. It's on Master Street."" - p 2
I'm reminded of the beginning of chapter 2 of John Stenibeck's The Grapes of Wrath:
"Outside, a man walking along the edge of the highway crossed over and approached the truck. He walked slowly to the front of it, put his hand on the shiny fender, and looked at the No Riders sticker on the windshield. For a moment he was about to walk on down the road, but instead he sat on the running board away from the restaurant." - p 5, The Grapes of Wrath, Bantam Books, 1970 paperback edition
Do people read Steinbeck anymore? I hope they do, his bks have a social conscience to them that's profound. It seems to me that Ross MacDonald's work does too. There's a whole world of literature out there written by people who're keen social observers who have something to say about it all, I'm glad they exist.
"He looked at me in surprise, and chewed his blood-stained mustache. "Phone the police?"
""They robbed you, didn't they? They should be behind bars."
""Maybe so," the old man said. "But these fellows have an in with the poilce."
""You know them?"
""I've seen 'em around town. I think the cops brought 'em in for strikebreakers two years ago. They been here ever since."" - p 9
Remember strikebreakers? Are they a vanishing breed in the US? They might be, after all, there're always more subtle ways of making sure that working people get less than we deserve. In other countries, however, all those countries where the so-called 'Free Trade' businesspeople are so fond of locating their factories, strikebreakers are still common. At any rate, I quote the above passage to continue the thread that perhaps Steinbeck & MacDonald aren't so far apart, such a passage might've been at home in Steinbeck. & waddya know?: in the last novel I reviewed by MacDonald, his 1st: The Dark Tunnel (my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) the main character encounters a Wobbly & is, himself, accused of being an "unconscious anarchist" — so look-see what we have in this novel:
""One more thing. We recovered the murder weapon and traced it. It was an old Smith and Wesson revolver, and it's definitely the gun that fired the bullets that killed J.D. We found it in the sewer on Mack Street near the entrance to the Mack Building. Up to a certain point it was easy to trace. The daughter of the original purchaser, a man named Teagarden, sold it to Kaufman the secondhand dealer. Kaufman admitted buying it, but claimed that it was stolen from his store a couple of days before the murder."
""You investigated Kaufman?"
""Naturally. He's a shady customer all right, some kind of an anarchist or radical. He writes crazy letters to the newspapers. But he didn't kill your father.["]" - p 23
The main character, Johnny, returns to his hometown after being alienated from his family for several years, only to discover that his father's been murdered. The murder happened not long after his father remarried. Johnny visits his stepmom & quickly starts bullying her w/o really much basis for his suspicions about her yet.
""I understand I'm next in line for J.D.'s property."
""As long as I'm alive I have a perfectly free hand."
"I got up and walked towards her across the room. "Now I know where we stand," I said. "What makes you certain you're going to be alive very long?"" - p 35
Johnny visits the man called an "anarchist" by the policeman who investigated his father's murder.
""What freedom have they got?" he demanded. "Freedom to slave in the factories, vote and think the way the radio and newspapers and political bosses tell them to vote and think, freedom to befuddle their brains in the taverns and the moving picture shows: freedom to be exploited and dispossessed. Let them stand up and fight for their rights!"
""I was wondering," I said slowly, "I was wondering if J.D. Weather could have been shot by somebody who disapproved of him for political reasons."" - p 42
Not much has changed, has it? People no longer have the "freedom to befuddle their brains in the taverns and the moving picture shows" – instead they have the 'freedom' to befuddle their brains w/ expensive prescription drugs of highly dubious benefit for their highly dubious 'Generalized Anxiety Disorder' while their computer befuddles their brains w/ lies, lies, & more lies disguised as education subtexted in thrilling entertainments preapproved by one censor or another — all working for 'their own good', har, har. OR.
"I got up and said: "You're not taking a chance on me. I think some of your ideas are screwy, but you're the first honest man I've talked to here. I won't let you down."" - p 44
Honest men? Remember that concept? Our hero is both honest & tough. It seems that the 2 have to go together if one wants to survive.
""Your memory is bad." I was as tense as he was. "John Weather."
"The knife flew open as it came out of the pocket. My left hand was ready and caught his right wrist. My right arm put a lock on it. He twisted quickly and pulled hard, but not out of my grasp. He was hard to bend, but he bent slowly as I raised my hands locked over his wrist. Slowly his head went down. He sighed almost inaudibly and the knife fell free just before I tore his shoulder loose in its socket." - p 54
&, of course, our hero gradually makes sense of the picture that he's revealing.
""Don't start telling me that my father dirtied this town. Apparently he did his share, but one man can't corrupt a town all by himself. It takes co-operation."
""You're right, Weather. I saw that only too clearly after your father died. You've got to realize that he and I were political enemies for years. I fought him when I was in Cranbridge in the D.A.'s office, and I fought him when I came back here to run for the council. I began to feel that one man was holding back this town, and that he was the man. But I was wrong. He died and things went on as before. It wasn't a man I had to fight—it was a system.["]" - p 89
For one thing, Weather discovers that he's not opposed to killing.
"A cockroach stepped from behind the ketchup, gave me a quick impassive once-over, decided that I was of the Brahmin faith, and walked earnestly across the table on errands of his own. Somebody had left a newspaper on the bench beside me, and I picked it up and swatted the cockroach, permitting his soul to transmigrate into the body of a quartermaster." - pp 94-95
For another, he sees thru the lies of the mainstream narrative w/ the help of someone who knows.
"With the efficient co-operation of our excellent police force, the agitators who would have sabotaged our contribution to the national effort were weeded out and properly dealt with."
[..]
""Pretty hot stuff, eh, Mac?" the waiter said over my shoulder. "I read that one myself."
""You liked it?"
""Don't kid me." He set my plate in front of me and spat on the floor. "My old man and my old lady worked out at Sanford's for the last thirty years. They're gettin' old now, and they make less than they did when they started. My brother was there for a while, till they broke his elbow with a lead pipe and threw him out of town. He was one of the foreign agitators they were talkin' about in this story in the paper. If Bobby was a Communist, I'm Uncle Joe Stalin with bells on."" - p 96
So, you see, while this is a novel about a man returning to his home town, discovering that his father was murdered, & investigating that murder, it's also a political novel based on the notion that societal SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) can be synonymous w/ murderous corruption & hypocrisy — a notion I whole-heartedly share.
"At the far end of the room, between green-blinded windows, there was a shelf labeled: "These Books Are Not To Be Circulated." Some of the titles I noticed were Gargantua and Patagruel, The Sentimental Education, To Have and Have Not, The Wild Palms. It was somehow comforting to know that the good people of the town that supported Kerch were protected against the lubricity of Rabelais, the immorality of Flaubert, the viciousness of Hemingway, and the degradation of Faulker." - pp 142-143
& how did MacDonald himself manage to avoid being on the list? Probably because he wrote good-old-crime-thrillers. Will Unconscious Suffocation - A Personal Journey through the PANDEMIC PANIC ever be a banned bk? We're uncomfortably close to that already.
September 14, 2016
"[...] I could see the vigorous movements of his right arm and shoulder up and down, back and forth, as he worked on it with the knife. When I got back to my car a quarter of a mile away, I could still hear her screams - or thought I could."
Ross Macdonald - the pen name of Kenneth Millar - is mainly known for the famous series of novels featuring the wise and humane PI, Lew Archer. I have recently finished re-reading and reviewing on Goodreads the entire extraordinary series, with its last entry, The Blue Hammer . Yet Mr. Millar also wrote stand-alone novels, and Blue City (1947), one of his earliest works, originally published under Millar's own name, does not feature Lew Archer. Instead, it is a thriller set in a fictional Midwest town in 1946.
The narrator, John Weather, freshly discharged from the army, comes back to the town of his youth after a ten-year absence. His father had been the mayor of the town before he was murdered two years ago. The first thing John does when he arrives in town is to help an old man who had his money stolen by two hoodlums. John handily beats them up which instantaneously sets the tone of the story: we have a truly hard-boiled hero not averse to use physical force. It becomes clear that John has come back mainly to find his father's killers and avenge his death. Soon he finds out that the town is controlled by a criminal machine, driven by greed, extortion, and blackmail, and he has to - virtually single-handedly - defeat the criminal enterprise.
The plot is firmly grounded in pulp literature clichés. Seventy years after the book was written they read awkward and often ridiculous. The contrast between this story and Macdonald's much later superb writing, such as in The Underground Man or The Chill is absolutely staggering. It is almost as if one were to believe the same author wrote Ulysses and the plots for reality shows. Well hidden in this heap of stereotypical drivel are occasional glimpses into Mr. Millar's true potential and his literary interests:
The "romantic" thread is not well written and contains pearls of prose worthy of Jackie Collins Writing School graduate:
A bad novel by a great writer.
One and a half stars.
Ross Macdonald - the pen name of Kenneth Millar - is mainly known for the famous series of novels featuring the wise and humane PI, Lew Archer. I have recently finished re-reading and reviewing on Goodreads the entire extraordinary series, with its last entry, The Blue Hammer . Yet Mr. Millar also wrote stand-alone novels, and Blue City (1947), one of his earliest works, originally published under Millar's own name, does not feature Lew Archer. Instead, it is a thriller set in a fictional Midwest town in 1946.
The narrator, John Weather, freshly discharged from the army, comes back to the town of his youth after a ten-year absence. His father had been the mayor of the town before he was murdered two years ago. The first thing John does when he arrives in town is to help an old man who had his money stolen by two hoodlums. John handily beats them up which instantaneously sets the tone of the story: we have a truly hard-boiled hero not averse to use physical force. It becomes clear that John has come back mainly to find his father's killers and avenge his death. Soon he finds out that the town is controlled by a criminal machine, driven by greed, extortion, and blackmail, and he has to - virtually single-handedly - defeat the criminal enterprise.
The plot is firmly grounded in pulp literature clichés. Seventy years after the book was written they read awkward and often ridiculous. The contrast between this story and Macdonald's much later superb writing, such as in The Underground Man or The Chill is absolutely staggering. It is almost as if one were to believe the same author wrote Ulysses and the plots for reality shows. Well hidden in this heap of stereotypical drivel are occasional glimpses into Mr. Millar's true potential and his literary interests:
"[...] the good people of the town [...] were protected against the lubricity of Rabelais, the immorality of Flaubert, the viciousness of Hemingway, and the degradation of Faulkner."Yet the absolute majority of the novel is suitable only for adolescent boys: beatings, shootings, blood, and torture, with guns being the main device of human communication.
The "romantic" thread is not well written and contains pearls of prose worthy of Jackie Collins Writing School graduate:
The streams of our desire rose, met, mingled, and subsided. I felt empty, dazed, and spent."Ouch! Macdonald's favorite cheap plot device - accidentally overhearing peoples' conversations - is used three times. Many dialogues are dated and sound like lines from bad James Cagney movies. In one totally implausible passage, 22-year-old John talks with the cynical wisdom of a 60-year-old. There is a curious passage about Mr. Kaufman and his Marx and Engels' books, Red threat, and C.I.O. agitators. On the positive side, I have learned one new word, 'hoydenish'.
A bad novel by a great writer.
One and a half stars.
June 6, 2020
A Blue City is one owned by the rackets -- the intersection of organized crime, politics and the police. Kenneth Millar may have talked anarchism and mutual aid among his fellow sailors when he served in the navy during WWII, but upon his return he wrote a novel set in March 1946 concerned with how a "midwestern" small town perhaps not unlike the Canadian one he grew up in (Kitchener, Ontario) had been corrupted, and he created a hero, "Johnny Weatherly," who, returning from the war, scorches onto its streets with a high calibre idealism that within two days sets the blue city into a passion play.
He had written a Lew Archer story by then, but had not settled on the nom de plume his wife Margaret Millar's success consigned him to -- he would be Ross Macdonald from 1949 on. Johnny Weatherly isn't quite Lew Archer, however probably the only thing keeping the two apart by this point was that Johnny Weatherly is a device Macdonald conceived to demonstrate via allegory how the country to which the Weatherly-Macdonalds returned wasn't worthy of the brutal violence to which its young people had been exposed. Having met the young daughter of a leftist-trinket shop owner, Carla, who is being ill-used (essentially a sex-worker for the dance halls) by the rackets, Johnny Weatherly falls for her, but he needs her connections to get near the boss-man of the rackets, Kerch:
I saw her shadow for a moment against the gray light at the end of the hall. Then the door closed and shut me into darkness again. I took [Kerch's henchman] Garland's automatic out of my pocket and made it ready to fire. The darkness was so thick I could hardly breathe it. But two or three facts were as clear in my head as objects under a searchlight. This was my last chance. If Kerch was alone I would break him down. If there was another man with him, I would have to kill the other man.
The point here is that our hero dives headlong into any situation based solely on the calculation of whether he can survive in a fight with the other party. War spurs this heedlessness based on physical courage. We're a ways from Lew Archer, but we're not far from the concerns of Kenneth Millar as he returned from the military to the Ann Arbors of academe. Nowhere is the alienation of the returning soldier clearer than in a novel like this that projects corruption onto the homosexual, with which, for the most part, veterans of that war were not meant to, or required to, serve. This is a great gap no degree of rock 'n' roll (Little Richard, et. al) or other cultural fad could serve, post-war, to erode. It remains the reason I can go no further with Macdonald than admiration for the allegorical structure of this plot and the clarity of its critique of that post-war world.
He had written a Lew Archer story by then, but had not settled on the nom de plume his wife Margaret Millar's success consigned him to -- he would be Ross Macdonald from 1949 on. Johnny Weatherly isn't quite Lew Archer, however probably the only thing keeping the two apart by this point was that Johnny Weatherly is a device Macdonald conceived to demonstrate via allegory how the country to which the Weatherly-Macdonalds returned wasn't worthy of the brutal violence to which its young people had been exposed. Having met the young daughter of a leftist-trinket shop owner, Carla, who is being ill-used (essentially a sex-worker for the dance halls) by the rackets, Johnny Weatherly falls for her, but he needs her connections to get near the boss-man of the rackets, Kerch:
I saw her shadow for a moment against the gray light at the end of the hall. Then the door closed and shut me into darkness again. I took [Kerch's henchman] Garland's automatic out of my pocket and made it ready to fire. The darkness was so thick I could hardly breathe it. But two or three facts were as clear in my head as objects under a searchlight. This was my last chance. If Kerch was alone I would break him down. If there was another man with him, I would have to kill the other man.
The point here is that our hero dives headlong into any situation based solely on the calculation of whether he can survive in a fight with the other party. War spurs this heedlessness based on physical courage. We're a ways from Lew Archer, but we're not far from the concerns of Kenneth Millar as he returned from the military to the Ann Arbors of academe. Nowhere is the alienation of the returning soldier clearer than in a novel like this that projects corruption onto the homosexual, with which, for the most part, veterans of that war were not meant to, or required to, serve. This is a great gap no degree of rock 'n' roll (Little Richard, et. al) or other cultural fad could serve, post-war, to erode. It remains the reason I can go no further with Macdonald than admiration for the allegorical structure of this plot and the clarity of its critique of that post-war world.
September 1, 2020
Pinkos are lousy tippers.
September 23, 2017
One of my favorites of the Ross Macdonald books I've read so far - much different from a Lew Archer novel. Sure, there is a mystery at the heart of Blue City but it takes a back seat to a much more interesting tale of revenge. Very basic story - man comes home after the war to find his father's killer - but Macdonald's portrait of a post-war small unnamed city in the throes of corruption was what worked far better than any plot machinations or revelations.
Macdonald slips in similar criticisms of the American Dream that also seemed to turn up in many of the film noirs of the same era. What I liked about Blue City was the open-eyed look at the country the veterans of WW2 faced - what had they fought and killed for? To come home and find your father murdered, the city you grew up in decaying, and your step-mother shacking up with who were definitely involved in pulling the trigger on your father? Something is amiss - Macdonald has some nice moments to illustrate the hypocrisy of "straight" society. As our hero starts to see that the corruption in the town knows no limits, he goes on the run from the mobsters and the corrupt police, hiding out in a public library after hours where he stumbles upon the books removed from circulation, his prose dripping with irony and sarcasm: "It was somehow comforting to know that the good people of the town that supported Kerch were protected against the lubricity of Rabelais, the immorality of Flaubert, the viciousness of Hemingway, and the degradation of Faulkner."
Added to asides like that a tender love story between a broken man with nothing to lose and a hooker (ish) with a heart of gold and one of the best dream sequences I've read in a while, you have yourself a stellar small crime novel. (There's supposed to be a crappy film version of Blue City - I would love to see another attempt, though doing period 40s would be tricky.)
Macdonald slips in similar criticisms of the American Dream that also seemed to turn up in many of the film noirs of the same era. What I liked about Blue City was the open-eyed look at the country the veterans of WW2 faced - what had they fought and killed for? To come home and find your father murdered, the city you grew up in decaying, and your step-mother shacking up with who were definitely involved in pulling the trigger on your father? Something is amiss - Macdonald has some nice moments to illustrate the hypocrisy of "straight" society. As our hero starts to see that the corruption in the town knows no limits, he goes on the run from the mobsters and the corrupt police, hiding out in a public library after hours where he stumbles upon the books removed from circulation, his prose dripping with irony and sarcasm: "It was somehow comforting to know that the good people of the town that supported Kerch were protected against the lubricity of Rabelais, the immorality of Flaubert, the viciousness of Hemingway, and the degradation of Faulkner."
Added to asides like that a tender love story between a broken man with nothing to lose and a hooker (ish) with a heart of gold and one of the best dream sequences I've read in a while, you have yourself a stellar small crime novel. (There's supposed to be a crappy film version of Blue City - I would love to see another attempt, though doing period 40s would be tricky.)
July 14, 2017
“Blue City” is MacDonald’s 1947 stand-alone novel about John Weather’s return to his hometown (which I don’t think is ever named in the 247-page book). The name Weather is appropriate because this book is as dark, shadowy, and hardboiled as any book could be. Just as in Gil Brewer’s 1957 book “The Angry Dream,” which obviously followed MacDonald’s “Blue City” by a decade, the story is about a young man who returns to his hometown after many years to find his father dead, to find that his father was hated by everyone in town, and to find that the town has turned dark and corrupt and nasty. But, while Brewer set his young man in a small-town in the country, MacDonald sets John Weather in a dark city.
John Weather has not seen his father since age twelve when his parents split up. He always held it against his father and, after his mother died, Weather drifted from town to town and signed up for the European theater in World War II, spending years shooting enemies and haunted by the memories. Weather has now come back to his hometown, to perhaps make amends with his father and to perhaps find work. Within hours after his return, he finds from an old man in a saloon, that his father died two years earlier, that his father brought crime, gambling, and corruption to the city, that his father had married a sexpot of a young lady closer to Weather’s own age and who inherited everything, and that the town is as corrupt as they come with every cop on the take and every citizen scared to speak out. Alone in this town, with almost every hand raised against him, Weather starts poking around and determines that his mission is to find out who killed his father and root out the corruption at its heart.
Weather is an unusual hero in that he is angry and cynical and has few moments of charm. In fact, what is amazing about the book is how dark and squalid and foreboding every page is. I can’t recall even one minute of sunshine in the book. It is not just hardboiled, it is extra- hardboiled. If I were to criticize one thing about this book, it would be that it is perpetually dark and sinister. The cynicism begins on the first page with Weather, who narrates in the first-person, talking about how when you’ve been away from a town where you lived as a kid, you think about it and talk about it as if the air there “were sweeter in the nostrils than any other air.” But, the City started sooner than he expected it to and had “crawled out along the highway.” The truckdriver Weather caught a ride with is asked if he likes the town and Weather is told that “It’s all right if you don’t know any better places.”
Weather is itching for a fight and he finds one around just about every corner. This book is filled with action and Weather is pushing ahead on each and every page with almost no let up in the action. Weather is angry that no one seems to have investigated his father’s murder and he is getting up in everyone’s face about it, throwing out accusations of cover ups.
Weather’s new stepmother is something else entirely. “She had her legs, and the way she moved her body. In her dark silk dress she moved with the free, shining fullness and flow of a seal in water.” “Her live, stirring body in that still room was like a snake in a sealed tomb, fed by unhealthy meat.” Weather thinks about how her body “seemed lost in a dream of its own power and beauty” and how he could “have reached out and taken it” “like a ripe fruit from a tree. But then she was my stepmother,” he explained, “and that would be incestuous. Besides, I hated her guts.”
This book is as hardboiled as it gets. It is well written. The prose is unbelievable and it may be among the best of MacDonald’s work. The story takes the reader through nightclubs, poolhalls, barroom brawls, shootouts, and crime and corruption. The only possible ray of light in the whole deal is a whore with a heart of gold.
The whole story takes place over the course of a day or two and within the confines of the Blue City. Even when Weather is dumped at the outskirts and told to start walking toward Chicago, he has to head back in and finish this deal. This is good writing. It is raw and powerful. And it is hardboiled fiction the way it was really mean to be. Highly recommended.
John Weather has not seen his father since age twelve when his parents split up. He always held it against his father and, after his mother died, Weather drifted from town to town and signed up for the European theater in World War II, spending years shooting enemies and haunted by the memories. Weather has now come back to his hometown, to perhaps make amends with his father and to perhaps find work. Within hours after his return, he finds from an old man in a saloon, that his father died two years earlier, that his father brought crime, gambling, and corruption to the city, that his father had married a sexpot of a young lady closer to Weather’s own age and who inherited everything, and that the town is as corrupt as they come with every cop on the take and every citizen scared to speak out. Alone in this town, with almost every hand raised against him, Weather starts poking around and determines that his mission is to find out who killed his father and root out the corruption at its heart.
Weather is an unusual hero in that he is angry and cynical and has few moments of charm. In fact, what is amazing about the book is how dark and squalid and foreboding every page is. I can’t recall even one minute of sunshine in the book. It is not just hardboiled, it is extra- hardboiled. If I were to criticize one thing about this book, it would be that it is perpetually dark and sinister. The cynicism begins on the first page with Weather, who narrates in the first-person, talking about how when you’ve been away from a town where you lived as a kid, you think about it and talk about it as if the air there “were sweeter in the nostrils than any other air.” But, the City started sooner than he expected it to and had “crawled out along the highway.” The truckdriver Weather caught a ride with is asked if he likes the town and Weather is told that “It’s all right if you don’t know any better places.”
Weather is itching for a fight and he finds one around just about every corner. This book is filled with action and Weather is pushing ahead on each and every page with almost no let up in the action. Weather is angry that no one seems to have investigated his father’s murder and he is getting up in everyone’s face about it, throwing out accusations of cover ups.
Weather’s new stepmother is something else entirely. “She had her legs, and the way she moved her body. In her dark silk dress she moved with the free, shining fullness and flow of a seal in water.” “Her live, stirring body in that still room was like a snake in a sealed tomb, fed by unhealthy meat.” Weather thinks about how her body “seemed lost in a dream of its own power and beauty” and how he could “have reached out and taken it” “like a ripe fruit from a tree. But then she was my stepmother,” he explained, “and that would be incestuous. Besides, I hated her guts.”
This book is as hardboiled as it gets. It is well written. The prose is unbelievable and it may be among the best of MacDonald’s work. The story takes the reader through nightclubs, poolhalls, barroom brawls, shootouts, and crime and corruption. The only possible ray of light in the whole deal is a whore with a heart of gold.
The whole story takes place over the course of a day or two and within the confines of the Blue City. Even when Weather is dumped at the outskirts and told to start walking toward Chicago, he has to head back in and finish this deal. This is good writing. It is raw and powerful. And it is hardboiled fiction the way it was really mean to be. Highly recommended.
February 8, 2023
Olin päässyt kunnon dekkareiden makuun hetki sitten lukemani mainion Roger Ackroydin murhan myötä, joten odotukset tätä - kansilehden mukaan - amerikkalaisen rikoskirjallisuuden suunnannäyttäjää kohtaan oli ehkä vähän turhan korkealla.
Sodasta entiseen kotikaupunkiinsa palannut Johnny saa vahingossa tietää isänsä tulleen murhatuksi ja alkaa selvittää mitä on tapahtunut ja miksi. Pian alkaa vaikuttaa siltä, että isä ei olekaan ollut pelkästään kunniallinen liikemies, eikä selvittämättömäksi jääneen tapauksen tonkiminen miellytä kaikkia. 40-luvun amerikkalaisen pikkukaupungin tunnelma on synkkä. Miehet ovat vaurioituneet sodassa, kommunismia pelätään ja ammattiliittoja vihataan. Korruptio rehottaa eikä kenenkään kannata luottaa - vähiten poliisivoimiin, jotka ovat visusti kaupungin hämärien bisnesmiesten taskuissa.
Vaikka kirja oli suhteellisen lyhyt, se tuntui välillä melko raskaalta. Sivutolkulla miesten loputonta mukaälykästä jorinaa ja yhtään mihinkään liittymätöntä randomien naisten vartaloiden kuvailua. Jos viljelisin termiä toksinen maskuliinisuus, niin paikoin tämä kirja suorastaan tihkuu sitä. Miehet ovat kovia ja väkivaltaisia, naisten tehtävä taas on huorata tai hoivata.
Tavallaan toki ymmärrän miksi tätä arvostetaan, kerronta on raa'an realistista, dialogin rivien väleistä pilkistää välillä kelpo kapitalismin- ja yhteiskuntakritiikkiä, ja yhden miehen vastaisku korruptoitunutta mätäpaisekaupunkia vastaan varmasti viehättää. Parhaimmillaan tää on oikein tyylikästä noiria, pahimmillaan väsynyttä machoilua.
Sodasta entiseen kotikaupunkiinsa palannut Johnny saa vahingossa tietää isänsä tulleen murhatuksi ja alkaa selvittää mitä on tapahtunut ja miksi. Pian alkaa vaikuttaa siltä, että isä ei olekaan ollut pelkästään kunniallinen liikemies, eikä selvittämättömäksi jääneen tapauksen tonkiminen miellytä kaikkia. 40-luvun amerikkalaisen pikkukaupungin tunnelma on synkkä. Miehet ovat vaurioituneet sodassa, kommunismia pelätään ja ammattiliittoja vihataan. Korruptio rehottaa eikä kenenkään kannata luottaa - vähiten poliisivoimiin, jotka ovat visusti kaupungin hämärien bisnesmiesten taskuissa.
Vaikka kirja oli suhteellisen lyhyt, se tuntui välillä melko raskaalta. Sivutolkulla miesten loputonta mukaälykästä jorinaa ja yhtään mihinkään liittymätöntä randomien naisten vartaloiden kuvailua. Jos viljelisin termiä toksinen maskuliinisuus, niin paikoin tämä kirja suorastaan tihkuu sitä. Miehet ovat kovia ja väkivaltaisia, naisten tehtävä taas on huorata tai hoivata.
Tavallaan toki ymmärrän miksi tätä arvostetaan, kerronta on raa'an realistista, dialogin rivien väleistä pilkistää välillä kelpo kapitalismin- ja yhteiskuntakritiikkiä, ja yhden miehen vastaisku korruptoitunutta mätäpaisekaupunkia vastaan varmasti viehättää. Parhaimmillaan tää on oikein tyylikästä noiria, pahimmillaan väsynyttä machoilua.
April 19, 2018
3.5 to 4 stars. This is the earliest Ross Macdonald currently in print to the best of my knowledge, though his third published. Better than a lot of late 40's noir I've read, but not yet Macdonald at his best.
Narrated in the first person by WWII vet John Weather returning to his hometown in 1946 to visit his father, who he's not spoken to since he was twelve. When he arrives, he finds strangers apparently in control of his father's businesses, and sets out immediately (in the middle of the night) get to the bottom of things.
The novel plays out over a fairly short period of time. Less than 48 hours I think, with the narrator proceeding pretty much directly from one encounter to the next. I'm not the type of reader who makes any effort to try and "solve" the mystery before the detective, but in my opinion Macdonald did a good job of keeping my suspicions shifting around.
The narrator seems a little verbally aggressive, and many of his quips seem a bit random, but overall certainly enjoyable. I wouldn't recommend this as a starting place for readers new to Macdonald though, leave it for the completist.
Narrated in the first person by WWII vet John Weather returning to his hometown in 1946 to visit his father, who he's not spoken to since he was twelve. When he arrives, he finds strangers apparently in control of his father's businesses, and sets out immediately (in the middle of the night) get to the bottom of things.
The novel plays out over a fairly short period of time. Less than 48 hours I think, with the narrator proceeding pretty much directly from one encounter to the next. I'm not the type of reader who makes any effort to try and "solve" the mystery before the detective, but in my opinion Macdonald did a good job of keeping my suspicions shifting around.
The narrator seems a little verbally aggressive, and many of his quips seem a bit random, but overall certainly enjoyable. I wouldn't recommend this as a starting place for readers new to Macdonald though, leave it for the completist.
October 23, 2019
Comparable in style to Red Harvest, written 20 years later, with a Raymond Chandler mystery inside it. Brutal, terse, and gripping.
There's a legitimate murder mystery, a violent criminal underworld, and philosophy about unions, communism, democracy, and what the US will become after WWII.
The interesting spin is that this is also a portrait of a rough-and-tumble 1940's Kitchener, ON--right down to the rubber factory, whose abuses of its workers are still being litigated. Macdonald somehow combines his intellect (literature Ph.D.!) and military experience into a tough as nails veteran narrator with a brain as fast as his fists.
There's a legitimate murder mystery, a violent criminal underworld, and philosophy about unions, communism, democracy, and what the US will become after WWII.
The interesting spin is that this is also a portrait of a rough-and-tumble 1940's Kitchener, ON--right down to the rubber factory, whose abuses of its workers are still being litigated. Macdonald somehow combines his intellect (literature Ph.D.!) and military experience into a tough as nails veteran narrator with a brain as fast as his fists.
February 12, 2018
And here is the promising author’s very bad book; the one where he shows an occasional hint of future greatness. But it’s very occasional, an unexpected graceful phrase, an odd moment where some unexpected Marxism falls into the narrative. Mostly, this is bloody but uninspired pulp fiction, where all the corrupt characters act illogically, the hero gets lucky and gets beat up in equal measure, and many of the plot points are the result of the hero overhearing just the right private conversations. The one oddly interesting thing — the plot is pure Pulp Western, slightly modified, right down to the villains stealing our hero’s rightful inheritance, and him having to use a six gun to get it all back.
July 7, 2019
A tough little hardboiled thriller, not much more and not much less. Speedy, violent, tawdry, and probably the closest Macdonald ever came to true pulp -- with a serviceable mystery nowhere near as dense as they would become with the Lew Archer books, and a plot ripped from Hammett's Red Harvest that seemed a little out of Macdonald's wheelhouse.
Still, as chintzy and old-fashioned as it was, I enjoyed it well enough. It's a shame this book was never snatched up by a studio circa-1948 or '49 and made into a cheap and sleek little B-noir, maybe starring Dana Andrews and Claire Trevor. All the elements of a good second-tier noir are here waiting to be indulged in, even if the book itself is more for Macdonald completeists.
Still, as chintzy and old-fashioned as it was, I enjoyed it well enough. It's a shame this book was never snatched up by a studio circa-1948 or '49 and made into a cheap and sleek little B-noir, maybe starring Dana Andrews and Claire Trevor. All the elements of a good second-tier noir are here waiting to be indulged in, even if the book itself is more for Macdonald completeists.
March 26, 2021
The joy in reading an early book written by Macdonald is to see the development of his style, character, plot and psychological elements in the later Lew Archer books. This is the third book which seems to take inspiration from Macdonalds's service as veteran returning to his hometown. The protagonist, John Weather, wants to reconcile with his father, only to find that he had been murdered two years earlier. In three days, John's made enemies of all the corrupt people in town, viciously beaten numerous times, found love, solved the father's murder, uncovered the blackmail and secrets and singlehandedly cleaned up the town. Whew... this was an improbable story, but it had my attention and interest.
March 14, 2017
I read a paperback edition published by Time Warner that clocked in at 214 pages. It has a different cover but I did not see it as one of the 17 choices of editions to choose. The vast array of publications might give you an idea of how successful and popular Kenneth Millar aka "Ross MacDonald" is. In the style of Dashiell Hammet or Raymond Chandler Millar writes about tough guys and dames. He has a *****spoiler alert***** hooker with a heart of gold, but I forgave him this - because the book is legitimately old (from the 40s.) The device did not seem tired, yet.
One interesting thing about this book is that it takes place continuously over what can't be more than a day and a half. When you see a sequence like that in print you get a real sense of how time flies that is lost when books are translated into movies. Our hero, John Weather, is on the go go go from the moment he steps into the Blue City, a suburb of Chicago. Due to the pacing I end up reading this book in 2 and a half days, lol. I'll say this, the pacing sustains. There are no slow spots.
The prose is awesome. Without any spoilers I'll quote ". . . he walked like a sack of rags." Or "I looked at Mr. Dundee's wig-brown hair, carefully parted in the exact center of his egg-shaped skull." I appreciate how books written in this time period are comparatively more expressive when describing characters - not like modern books with toss off phrases like 'he looked like a movie star." It seems descriptive phrases disappears with the advent of major motion pictures.
Anyway - - I recommend this book to anyone who likes Bogart movies, tough guys and likes plot twists. There's violence, but not too many ghoulish descriptions.
One interesting thing about this book is that it takes place continuously over what can't be more than a day and a half. When you see a sequence like that in print you get a real sense of how time flies that is lost when books are translated into movies. Our hero, John Weather, is on the go go go from the moment he steps into the Blue City, a suburb of Chicago. Due to the pacing I end up reading this book in 2 and a half days, lol. I'll say this, the pacing sustains. There are no slow spots.
The prose is awesome. Without any spoilers I'll quote ". . . he walked like a sack of rags." Or "I looked at Mr. Dundee's wig-brown hair, carefully parted in the exact center of his egg-shaped skull." I appreciate how books written in this time period are comparatively more expressive when describing characters - not like modern books with toss off phrases like 'he looked like a movie star." It seems descriptive phrases disappears with the advent of major motion pictures.
Anyway - - I recommend this book to anyone who likes Bogart movies, tough guys and likes plot twists. There's violence, but not too many ghoulish descriptions.
July 16, 2024
2 1/2 * : "it-was-okay-plus"
This book pre-dates the author's 18-novel (plus short stories) Lew Archer series, and I enjoyed it a lot less than any of those books. The Archer stories crackle with smart, snappy dialogue, and benefit from taut plotting. Lew Archer's personal code of ethics, and his dogged persistence following clues where they lead, anchor those works of fiction. Here the protagonist is an immature whiner who succeeds in spite of his haphazard nursing of personal grievance.
This book pre-dates the author's 18-novel (plus short stories) Lew Archer series, and I enjoyed it a lot less than any of those books. The Archer stories crackle with smart, snappy dialogue, and benefit from taut plotting. Lew Archer's personal code of ethics, and his dogged persistence following clues where they lead, anchor those works of fiction. Here the protagonist is an immature whiner who succeeds in spite of his haphazard nursing of personal grievance.
April 13, 2025
Macdonald's take on a Red Harvest type of a novel. Very cool, very witty, but on the minus side it has a crazy long denouement that's neither exciting nor necessary.
"Lend me fifty dollars and a gun.”
“I can let you have some money,” he said slowly. “But I haven’t a gun. Why do you want a gun?”
“For self-protection. I’m going to kill [him] with my bare hands, and I’ll need a gun for self-protection while I’m doing it.”
"Lend me fifty dollars and a gun.”
“I can let you have some money,” he said slowly. “But I haven’t a gun. Why do you want a gun?”
“For self-protection. I’m going to kill [him] with my bare hands, and I’ll need a gun for self-protection while I’m doing it.”
September 24, 2025
Lejos de su popular Lew Archer, Ross Macdonald demuestra su habilidad narrativa con un personaje sanguíneo y brusco, casi lo opuesto a aquel investigador privado. Los une su búsqueda de una justicia empantada por trampas legales, mentiras y gente sin escrúpulos, donde el joven antihéroe (ex soldado que regresa a su pueblo natal, ahora muy cambiado) deberá ser tan sucio como sus opnentes para sacar la verdad a la luz. Magnífico.
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