Recommended reading - The Underground Man, by Ross Macdonald (1971):

The Underground Man

By Ross Macdonald.

# 16 in the Lew Archer series.

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

First published 1971.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0679768084

ISBN-13: 978-0679768081

Description:

"There are certain books that bide their time, like plants, waiting decades to flower.... If a copy of The Underground Man, a novel from 1971, by Ross Macdonald, has been sitting on your shelf for ages, unread and barely noticed, try opening it now. Suddenly it's a book in full bloom." – Anthony Lane, The New Yorker.

"A more serious and complex writer than Chandler and Hammett ever were." – Eudora Welty.

"Ross Macdonald is an important American novelist!" – San Francisco Chronicle.

"I should like to venture that Ross Macdonald is a better novelist than either...Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler." – Anthony Boucher, The New York Times Book Review.

As a mysterious fire rages through the hills above a privileged town in Southern California, Archer tracks a missing child who may be the pawn in a marital struggle or the victim of a bizarre kidnapping. What he uncovers amid the ashes is murder – and a trail of motives as combustible as gasoline. The Underground Man is a detective novel of merciless suspense and tragic depth, with an unfaltering insight into the moral ambiguities at the heart of California's version of the American dream.

If any writer can be said to have inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammet 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.

Voltaire, on writing:

Writing is the painting of the voice.

- Voltaire.

On this day in movie history - Diabolique (1996 movie & novel):

Diabolique

directed by Jeremiah Chechik,

written by Don Roos,

based on the original screenplay by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jérôme Géronimi, René Masson and Frédéric Grendel,

in turn based on the novel She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac,

was released in the United States on March 22, 1996.
Music by Randy Edelman.

Cast:

Sharon Stone, Isabelle Adjani, Chazz Palminteri, Kathy Bates, Spalding Gray, Shirley Knight, Allen Garfield, Adam Hann-Byrd, Donal Logue, Diana Bellamy, Clea Lewis, J.J. Abrams, O'Neal Compton, Bingo O'Malley, Stephen Liska, James Kisicki, Kevin Vinay, Cory Pattak, Kate Young, Sophia Salguero, Hank Stohl, Zachary Mott, Jesse Sky Ross, Tony Amen, Daniel Conley, Aaron D. Frankel, Daniel Kremer, Phil Nardozzi, Steve Patterson.

Recommended reading:

She Who Was No More

By Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac.

Filmed as Les Diaboliques, a.k.a. Diabolique, The Devils, The Fiends (1955), directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

ASIN: B00TNBPJ9O

Published by Pushkin Vertigo.

English language translation edition 2015.

Published 2015.

First published 1951.

Description:

Every Saturday evening, travelling salesman Ferdinand Ravinel returns to his wife, Mireille, who waits patiently for him at home. But Ferdinand has another lover, Lucienne – an ambitious doctor – and together the adulterers have devised a murderous plan.

Drugging Mireille, the pair drown her in a bathtub. But before the "accidental" death can be discovered, the corpse mysteriously disappears. So begins the unraveling of Ferdinand's plot, and his sanity.

This classic of French noir fiction was adapted for the screen by Henri-Georges Clouzot as Les Diaboliques (The Devils; The Fiends), starring Simone Signoret and Véra Clouzot, the film which in turn inspired Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. A second movie version, Diabolique, followed in 1996, starring Sharon Stone.

On this day in music history - Urban Blues, by John Lee Hooker (1967):

Urban Blues

Album by John Lee Hooker,

released March 22, 1967.

Track list:

Cry Before I Go; Boom Boom Boom; Backbiters & Syndicaters; Mr. Lucky; By Own Blues; I Can't Stand To Leave You; Think Twice Before You Go; I'm Standing In Line; Hot Spring Water Pt.1; Hot Spring Water Pt.2; The Motor City Is Burning; Want Ad Blues.

On this day in television history - M Squad (1960):

M Squad

Season 3. Episode 27.
Episode entitled: A Kid Up There.
Released March 22, 1960.
Directed by Paul Stewart.
Written by Ian Hamilton and Maxwell Shane.
Music by Benny Carter.

Cast:

Lee Marvin, Paul Newlan, Bert Freed, Connie Gilchrist, Al Ruscio, Jimmy Baird, Gil Frye.

Born on this day – Maxie Solters:

Maxie Solters

Actress

Producer

Writer

March 22, 1987 – August 15, 2024

Credits:

4th Annual Young Entertainer Awards Red Carpet Interviews 2019 (2019); Adventures in Online Dating (2016–2017); After Lately (2011); Anger Management (2013); Birnkrant 616 (2006–2007); Blind Ambition (2008); Bloody Bobby (2016); Boyfriend Application (2015); Broken at Love (2013); Chooch (2016); CLIMAX! The Series (2017); Couples Therapy (2011); FaceBack (2014); Female Friendly (2018); Havenhurst (2016); In the Moment (2014); Jilted (2015); Last Place Trophy (2016); Legend of Fall Creek (2021); Limitless Love (2015); One and Only (2015); Sea Horse (2013); Shark Bites (2013); Sharp (2013); Six (2022); So Likeable: An Inside Peek at ‘Please Like Me’ (2015); Sour Milk (2012); Teens Wanna Know (2015); The Dog Days of Winter (2006); The Good, the Bad, and the Bloody (2024); The Pet Peeve Police (2018).

Born on this day – Bruno Ganz:

Bruno Ganz

Actor

Director

Cinematographer

March 22, 1941 – February 16, 2019

Credits:

4Pop (2004); 5% de risque (1980); Bread and Tulips (2000); Brot (2011); Canto alla durata - Omaggio a Peter Handke (2017); Ceremonia de clausura - 54º festival internacional de cine de San Sebastián (2006); Charlie Rose (2005); Chikita (1961); Children of Nature (1991); Circle of Deceit (1981); Claudio Abbado - Die Stille hören (2003); Claudio Abbado & Lucerne Festival Orchestra (2015); Closed Circuit (1983); Coda: Thirty Years Later (2007); Colors in the Dark (2010); Continuarà... (2009); Copacabana (2007); Das Ende ist mein Anfang (2010); Das Geheimnis unseres Waldes (2011); Das Jahrhundert des Theaters (2002); Der Bernd (2012); Der Erfinder (1980); Der grosse Kater (2010); Der Herr mit der schwarzen Melone (1960); Der Ignorant und der Wahnsinnige (1972); Der Park (1985); Der Pendler (1986); Der sanfte Lauf (1967); Der Spaßvogel (1964); Deutscher Filmpreis 2014 (2014); Deutscher Filmpreis 2017 (2017); Diario senza date (1995); Días de cine (2017); Die Bakchen (1974); Die Goldene Kamera (2014); Die Mutter (1971); Die Schlacht bei Lobositz (1968); Die Unberatenen (1966); Die Ursache bin ich selbst (1986); Die Vitusmacher (2006); Die Wette (1990); Downfall (2004); Ein starker Abgang (2008); Eine große Familie (1970); El río de oro (1986); El trabajo de un actor (1985); Epoca: The Making of History (2002); Epsteins Nacht (2002); Er spielte seinen Schatten mit - Der Schauspieler Klaus Kammer (2002); Er, der Hut, sitzt auf ihm, dem Kopf (2006); Erfolg (1991); Es Dach überem Chopf (1962); Especially on Sunday / La domenica specialmente (1991); Eternity and a Day (1998); Etwas wird sichtbar (1981); Faraway, So Close! (1993); Fermata Etna (1981); Fortuna (2018); Frühlings Erwachen (1966); Gala from Berlin (1991); Gedächtnis: Ein Film für Curt Bois und Bernhard Minetti (1982); Gegen Ende der Nacht (1998); Geschichte einer Liebe (1978); Geysir und Goliath (2010); Giovanni Segantini - Magic of Light (2015); Hands Up! (1981); Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II (2005); Heidi (2015); Heller Tag (1994); A Hidden Life (2019); Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas (2013); Alias Kurban Saïd (2004); Amnesia (2015); Anwalt Abel (1996); Asmara (1993); Återkomster (1994); Bankomatt (1989); Baruto no gakuen (2006); Bayerischer Filmpreis 2016 (2017); Behind Me - Bruno Ganz (2002); Boulevard Bio (2002); Brandnacht (1992); Il grande Fausto (1995); Im Dickicht der Städte (1968); In Order of Disappearance (2014); In the White City (1983); In Times of Fading Light (2017); Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust I (2001); Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust II (2001); Julia's Disappearance (2009); Karussell (1981); Killer aus Forida (1983); Knife in the Head (1978); Krieg und Frieden (1982); Kulturplatz (2005); La forza del passato (2002); La provinciale (1980); Lady of the Camelias (1981); Le quatuor des possibles (1993); L'Ellipse (1998); Logik des Gefühls (1982); Lola - Der Deutsche filmpreis (2005); Lola - Der Deutsche filmpreis 2010 (2010); Lola - Der Deutsche filmpreis 2011 (2011); Lumiere (1976); Lumière and Company / Wim Wenders (1995); Luther (2003); Maß für Maß (1968); Menschen bei Maischberger (2004); Naquele Dia em Lisboa (2023); NeXt (2000); Nicolas Bouvier, 22th Hospital Street (2005); Night Train to Lisbon (2013); Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979); Of Women and Horses (2011); Oggetti smarriti (1980); Peer Gynt (1971); Peter Przygodda, Schnittmeister (1994); Polenta (1980); Prague (1992); Prinz Friedrich von Homburg (1973); Private Resistance (1985); Remember (2015); Retour à la bien-aimée (1979); Saint-Ex (1996); Schrödingers kat (1990); Schwarz und weiß wie Tage und Nächte (1978); Signé croisette (1998); Sommergäste (1976); Sounds and Silence (2009); Spiel für Dein Land (2015); Stairway to Nowhere (2008); Strapless (1989); Sul nome Bach (2011); Tassilo - Ein Fall für sich (1991); Tatort (1996); Taxiphone: El Mektoub (2010); The 2010 European Film Awards (2010); The 2011 European Film Awards (2011); The Absence (1992); The American Friend (1977); The Architecture of Doom (1989); The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008); The Big Ben Cinematic Universe (2018); The Boys from Brazil (1978); The Counselor (2013); The House That Jack Built (2018); The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992); The Last Days of Chez Nous: Featurette (1992); The Last Days of Chez Nous: Interview Excerpts (1992); The Left-Handed Woman (1977); The Legendary Life of Ernest Hemingway (1989); The Little Prince (2011); The Making of 'Nosferatu' (1979); The Manchurian Candidate (2004); The Marquise of O (1976); The Naked King (2019); The Party (2017); The Reader (2008); The Tobacconist (2018); The Vatican (2013); The Wild Duck (1976); The Witness (2018); Tödliches Schweigen (1996); Torquato Tasso (1969); Trilogia II: I skoni tou hronou (2008); Un amore di donna (1988); Universum (1997); Unknown (2011); Unknown: The Story (2011); Unknown: What Is Known? (2011); Unsere Besten (2003); Väter und Söhne - Eine deutsche Tragödie (1986); Vitus (2006); Von einem der auszog - Wim Wenders' frühe Jahre (2007); Von Zeit zu Zeit (1989); WerAngstWolf (2000); Who the F... Is Roger Rossmeisl (2020); Wings of Desire (1987); Wings of Desire: The Angels Among Us (2003); Winter Journey (2019); You Can't Go Home Again (1999); Youth Without Youth (2007); Zur Person (2001).