For me, as should be the case for all crime writers and readers, I use the holy grail that is Raymond Chandler as a measure of an Author's quality.
This is unfair for most authors as the quality that Chandler created in his Marlowe Mysteries is something beyond the reaches of much less than a deity. However, one of the closest contenders is Ross MacDonald.
I first read this book when I was in University and I will admit that its brilliance escaped me at the time. I knew it was good, but I could not do it justice.
Reading again we find hints of the literary quality that befalls a Chandler novel, with an ever so slightly increase in the poetic flow of the prose. The words slip and slide off the page into your mind and, whilst it does not make me uncontrollably smile like a Chandler, I am filled with an immense satisfaction.
The plot seems to get a lot of people. I won't go into detail here (for the sake of spoilers) but this is not a detective story, but a family drama with a detective story wrapped around it. And we all know how complicated and irrational families can be! MacDonald is just being true to the often paradoxical complexities of the woes of kin. And, like Chandler, the destination is far less important than the journey and the whole is far less important than its constituent parts. The mystery itself is not as intriguing as the complications (such as the roadside ambush and mental hospital) that are encountered along the way. On top of all of this, for all the interested parties, the solution to all that has happened is actually satisfyingly simple.
And how do I know this was such a great book...?
Because when I reached page 180 out of 216 I felt a pang of sadness at the inevitability of its end and the struggle I would soon face to find something as enjoyable to follow it.
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