13 September, 2002
The Zebra-Striped Hearse
Ross Macdonald
1962
278 pp, Knopf HC
The last two Ross Macdonald books I read, The Drowning Pool and The Wycherly Woman, were good. This one is excellent.
Lew Archer is hired by a wealthy, retired Army officer, Colonel Blackwell, to investigate his daughter's undersirable fiance´. Blackwell is sure that the fellow, Burke Damis, is a con man, after the daughter's inheritance. The girl's stepmother, on the other hand, thinks that her husband is simply an overbearing, controlling father who won't let his kid grow up. Archer quickly discovers that both points of view are close to the mark. He also uncovers a murder in which Damis appears to have been involved. What starts off as a simple family investigation turns into a murder case, crossed with an interstate manhunt when the daughter runs off with Damis.
Macdonald's characterization is supurb; even the minor characters are well drawn, coming across as real, three-dimensional people who have lives of their own, outside of Archer's case. The primary characters are quite complex-- none of them are quite as they appear at first, not even as they appear at second. The plot follows that pattern, as well; the case unfolds like peeling an onion-- each discovery Archer makes reveals a new layer, and sheds a different light on events.
I'm somewhat hesitant to compare Macdonald to Chandler, because I don't want to give the impression that he was simply a skilled imitator of the Master. However, it's clear that Macdonald was strongly influenced by his predecessor. Like Chandler, Macdonald knew how to use the California setting to its best effect. It's more than simply providing a strong sense of place, but in exploiting the contrast between what the Golden State symbolizes-- glamour, the land of milk and honey, paradise-- and the hard reality of peoples' lives. In Chandler, the disparity is embodied in the detective himself. Marlowe usually wants to help people, and do the right thing, but more often than not it's a mostly futile gesture-- one gets the sense that his help won't have a lasting effect, the people he deals with will eventually self-destruct all on their own.
Lew Archer is not much like Phillip Marlowe, except in the general inclination to try to save people in trouble. He's much less of a romantic, and thus not nearly so disillusioned. The angst is all on the part of the people he interacts with. He's more detached, and also more effective. At the end of Macdonald's books, there's a sense of hope, and the possibility for redemption-- at least for some of the characters. Anyway, this book convinced me that Macdonald is a worthy addition to my roster of Tough Guy Detective Fiction.