On this day in movie history – Harper a.k.a. The Moving Target (1966 movie & novel):

Harper

directed by Jack Smight,

written by William Goldman,

based on the novel The Moving Target by Ross Macdonald,

was released in the United States on February 23, 1966.

Music by Johnny Mandel.

Cast:

Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, Arthur Hill, Janet Leigh, Pamela Tiffin, Robert Wagner, Robert Webber, Shelley Winters, Harold Gould, Roy Jenson, Strother Martin.

Recommended reading:

The Moving Target

aka Harper.

By Ross MacDonald.

ISBN-10: 037570146X

ISBN-13: 978-0375701467

Published 1949.

Back cover description:

CRIME FICTION

“Ross Macdonald remains the grandmaster, taking the crime novel to new heights by imbuing it with psychological resonance, complexity of story, and richness of style that remain awe-inspiring. Those of us in his wake owe a debt that can never be paid. – Jonathan Kellerman.

Like many Southern California millionaires, Ralph Sampson keeps odd company. There’s the sun-worshipping holy man whom Sampson once gave his very own mountain; the fading actress with sidelines in astrology and S&M. Now one of Sampson’s friends may have arranged his kidnapping. And as Lew Archer follows the clues from the canyon sanctuaries of the megarich to jazz joints where you get beaten up between sets, The Moving Target blends sex, greed, and family hatred into an explosively readable crime novel.

“Macdonald is one of a handful of writers in the [mystery] genre whose worth and quality surpass the limitations of the form.” – Los Angeles Times.

If any writer can be said to have inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, it was Ross Macdonald. Between the later 1940s and his death in 1983, he gave the American crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity that his predecessors had only hinted at. And in the character of Lew Archer, Macdonald redefined the private eye as a roving conscience whop walks the treacherous frontier between criminal guilt and human sin.

VINTAGE CRIME / BLACK LIZARD

Born on this day – Ross Macdonald:

Ross Macdonald

Writer

December 13, 1915 – July 11, 1983

Credits:

The Lew Archer novel series: The Moving Target (aka Harper) (1949); The Drowning Pool (1950); The Way Some People Die (1951); The Ivory Grin (aka Marked for Murder) (1952); Find a Victim (1954); The Barbarous Coast (1956); The Doomsters (1958); The Galton Case (1959); The Wycherly Woman (1961); The Zebra-Striped Hearse (1962); The Chill (1963); The Far Side of the Dollar (1965); Black Money (1966); The Instant Enemy (1968); The Goodbye Look (1969); The Underground Man (1971); Sleeping Beauty (1973); The Blue Hammer (1976); The Name is Archer (1955); Lew Archer, Private Investigator (1977); The Archer Files (2007). The Chet Gordon novel series: The Dark Tunnel (aka I Die Slowly) (1944); Trouble Follows Me (1946). Stand-alone novels, short stories and novellas: Blue City (1947); The Three Roads (1948); Meet Me at the Morgue (aka Experience with Evil) (1954); The Ferguson Affair (1967); The Guilty Ones (1952); The Imaginary Blonde (1953); Midnight Blue (2010); Strangers in Town (2001); Dear Dead Days: 1972 Mystery Writers of America Anthology (1972); Mammoth Book of Short Crime Novels (1986); The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories (1988); City Sleuths and Tough Guys (1989); Pulp Frictions: Hardboiled Stories (1996); The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories (1996); Writing Los Angeles (2002); Los Angeles Noir 2 (2010); Books to Die For (2012).

Movies and television:

Archer (1975); Blue City (1986); City Detective (1954); Crime Writers (1978); Criminal Behavior (1992); Double Negative (1980); Harper (1966); Harper Days Are Here Again (1975); Le loup de la côte Ouest (2002); Pursuit (1958); Tayna (1992); The Drowning Pool (1975); The Underground Man (1974).

Recommended reading - The Far Side of the Dollar (1965):

The Far Side of the Dollar

By Ross Macdonald.

Vintage Crime / Black Lizard.

First published 1965.

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0679768653

ISBN-13: 978-0679768654

Description:

Crime fiction.

“Ross Macdonald must be ranked high amongst American thriller-writers.” – Times Literary Supplement (London).

In The Far Side of the Dollar, Archer is looking for an unstable rich kid who has run away from an exclusive reform school – and into the arms of kidnappers. Why are his desperate parents so loath to give Archer the information he needs to find him? And why do all trails lead to a derelict Hollywood hotel where starlets and sailors once rubbed elbows with two-bit grifters – and where the present clientele includes a brand-new corpse? The result is Macdonald at his most exciting, delivering 1,000-volt shocks to the nervous system while uncovering the venality and depravity at the heart of the case.

“Most mystery writers merely write about crime. Ross Macdonald writes about sin.” – The Atlantic.

Recommended reading - The Chill (1963):

The Chill

By Ross Macdonald.

First published 1963.

Published by Vintage Crime / Black Lizard.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0679768076

ISBN-13: 978-0679768074

Description:

In The Chill a distraught young man hires Archer to track down his runaway bride. But no sooner has he found Dolly Kincaid than Archer finds himself entangled in two murders, one twenty years old, the other so recent that the blood is still wet. What ensues is a detective novel of nerve-racking suspense, desperately believable characters, and one of the most intricate plots ever spun by an American crime writer.

"The American private eye, immortalized by Hammett, refined by Chandler, brought to its zenith by MacDonald."

– The New York Times Book Review.

"The finest series of detective novels ever written by an American."

– The New York Times.

Recommended reading - The Zebra-Striped Hearse (1962):

The Zebra-Striped Hearse

By Ross Macdonald.

First published in 1962.

Published by Vintage Crime / Black Lizard.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0375701451

ISBN-13: 978-0375701450

“Ross Macdonald gives to the detective story that accent of class that the late Raymond Chandler did.” – Chicago Tribune.

Strictly speaking, Lew Archer is only supposed to dig up the dirt on a rich man's suspicious soon-to-be son-in-law. But in no time at all Ross Macdonald’s private eye is following a trail of corpses from the citrus belt to Mazatlán. And then there is the zebra-striped hearse and its crew of beautiful, sunburned surfers, whose path seems to keep crossing the son-in-law's – and Archer's – in a powerful, fast-paced novel of murder on the California coast.

“A model of his excellence…. [The Zebra-Striped Hearse] has character, statement, and style.” – The New Yorker.

Recommended reading - The Wycherly Woman (1961):

The Wycherly Woman

By Ross Macdonald.

Vintage Crime / Black Lizard.

Paperback.

First published in 1961.

ISBN-10: 0375701443

ISBN-13: 978-0375701443

Description:

“A fine yarn…. The pace is fast, the plot well-knit, with plenty of suspense and surprise as extra dividends.”

– Chicago Tribune.

Phoebe Wycherly was missing two months before her wealthy father hired Archer to find her. That was plenty of time for a young girl who wanted to disappear to do so thoroughly – or for someone to make her disappear. And before he can locate the Wycherly girl, Archer had to reckon with the Wycherly woman, Phoebe's mother, an eerily unmaternal blonde who keeps too many residences, had too many secrets, and left too many corpses in her wake.

“Macdonald is one of a handful of writers in the [mystery] genre whose worth and quality surpass the limitations of the form.” – Los Angeles Times.

Recommended reading - The Galton Case (1959):

The Galton Case

By Ross Macdonald.

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Vintage Crime / Black Lizard

Published 1959.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0679768645

ISBN-13: 978-0679768647

Description:

Almost twenty years have passed since Anthony Galton disappeared, along with a suspiciously streetwise bride and several thousand dollars of his family's fortune. Now Anthony's mother wants him back and has hired Lew Archer to find him. What turns up is a headless skeleton, a boy who claims to be Galton's son, and a con game whose stakes are so high that someone is still willing to kill for them. Devious and poetic, tersely poetic, The Galton Case displays MacDonald at the pinnacle of his form.

If any writer can be said to have inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, it was Ross Macdonald. Between the late 1940s and his death in 1983, he gave the American crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity that his predecessors had only hinted at. And in the character of Lew Archer, Macdonald redefined the private eye as a roving conscience who walks the treacherous frontier between criminal guilt and human sin.

Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer mysteries rewrote the conventions of the detective novel with their credible, humane hero, and with Macdonald’s insight and moral complexity won new literary respectability for the hardboiled genre previously pioneered by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

“Exciting and beautifully plotted.” – The New York Times Book Review.

“A model of intelligently engineered excitement.” – The New Yorker.

“One of his best … The Macdonald depth of understanding and dispassionate charity come out well, and the story … is richly plotted.” – San Francisco Chronicle.

Recommended reading - The Doomsters (1958):

The Doomsters

By Ross Macdonald.

ASIN: 0307279049

First published 1958.

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 9780307279040

ISBN-13: 978-0307279040

Description:

“Most mystery writers merely write about crime. Ross Macdonald writes about sin.” – The Atlantic Monthly.

“Ross Macdonald should not be limited in audience to connoisseurs of mystery fiction. He is one of a handful of writers in the genre whose worth and quality surpass the limitations of the form.” – Los Angeles Times.

Hired by Carl Hallman, the desperate-eyed junkie scion of an obscenely wealthy political dynasty, detective Lew Archer investigates the suspicious deaths of Hallman’s parents, Senator Hallman and his wife Alicia. Arriving in the sleepy town of Purissima, Archer discovers that orange groves may be where the Hallmans made their mint, but they’ve has been investing heavily in political intimidation and police brutality to shore up their rancid riches. However, after years of dastardly double-crossing and low down dirty-dealing, the family seem to be on the receiving end of a karmic death-blow. With two dead already and another consigned to the nuthouse, Archer races to crack the secret before another Hallman lands on the slab.

Murder, madness and greed grace The Doomsters, where a tony façade masks the rot and corruption within.

“Ross Macdonald is one of the best writers of the whipcord thriller.” – The Bookman.