Ross Macdonald, the Early Novels

 

Some of Raymond Chandler's short stories were published in magazines in the years before his first novel, The Big Sleep, cane out. He was 51, and a fully realized writer, by the time that first novel reached its first readers in 1939.

The situation was different for Ross Macdonald (1915-1983), usually considered the last of the great triumvirate of U.S. hard-boiled detective noir writers (Dashiell Hammett is the first of the three). Macdonald published four novels before the first book in his Lew Archer detective series. I read all of those novels in the last few weeks as I prepare to teach my detective fiction course again this spring. The books are (in order) The Dark Tunnel (1944), Trouble Follows Me (1946), Blue City (1947), and The Three Roads (1948).

Each of these books was a pleasure to read. Maybe the fourth, The Three Roads, was the toughest going. None of them are as successful as the Archer series, the first book of which, The Moving Target, was published in 1949, when Macdonald was 34. The action in these early books is sometimes overblown, sometimes silly, and yet always fascinating enough that I wasn’t tempted to put any of them down. Parts of all of them are riveting. All four are murder mysteries too, minus a central detective, but they’re also noir action thrillers mired in the problems of World War II as it is affecting people living in the U.S. All of them feature central characters with experiences as soldiers who are either on leave or recently discharged.

The novels have many of the strengths of Macdonald’s later, more successful books, a great style, compelling conflicts, unexpected turns. It’s also interesting that some of their shortcomings are similar to some that turn up in the later books as well if in smaller degrees. In any case all four remain very readable today, and not just as exercises in the development of greatness, although they certainly proved very valuable to me in showing the characteristics of Macdonald’s writing in proto-form.