The Drowning pool - Ross Macdonald

I have a new phone, I don't understand what it does, can't stop it doing whatever it is it does, and have

somehow spent all afternoon and evening on trying to master it, my hope is that I'll have figured out how to set the alarm on it before I go to sleep tonight. I must be getting old because things like this just baffle me now.

None of which has anything to do with Ross Macdonald's 'The Drowning Pool' but it feels good to share. I've read a few Macdonald's now and he's always enjoyable though in the nicest possible way a little bit formulaic - or at least heavily reliant on common themes between books, which if less intelligently handled might get tiresome. As it is he makes them work, and for me, never better than here (at least not in my reading so far). 

Lew Archer meets another attractive older woman with a troubled marriage to a man who isn't quite what he seems to be, and some issues with a mother in law and daughter. There are some particularly good one liners, and an sticky situation that looks particularly bad for Archer until he extracts himself in a way that would do Bond proud. 

I think the physcology of this book works better than in some of the others I've read, or at least it certainly works better for me. This is a massive spoiler but it turns out that the husband is gay. He married his wife, the attractive older blonde, partly in an attempt to deny his sexuality - it was her job to save him from himself. She married him because she was pregnant (not his child). Sixteen years later it's not looking good. The marriage is tense, the mother in law holds the purse strings and she holds them tightly so when she drowns in the swimming pool it's almost a relief. Matters are further complicated by the unhealthy mutual attraction between father and step daughter. It's Macdonald's habit to have events from the past, the sins of the father's if you will, come back to haunt the next generation - in this case because it's a simple thing - a bad marriage it makes sense. The identity of the killer came as a surprise, and a shock, but it made sense.

In the end murder and the nasty reasons behind it are still a lot simpler than trying to get to grips with a new mobile phone which has me worried. 

The Goodbye Look - Ross MacDonald

Penguin modern classics have led me to some fantastic Noir crime finds over the last couple of years (long may it continue) of which Ross Macdonald may well be the pick of the bunch - simply because there are so many of his books to look forward to.

This is the third Macdonald I've read now and there are definite themes emerging. Physcology and physchiatrists are both important. As far as I can remember there's always a doctor around and although their role may be relatively small in this book at least it was pivotal. More important is that an initial crime, one often several years old, will come back to be the catalyst for whatever is happening now - the sins of the fathers are always visited on the children. In this case a gun that was used in a murder 15 years previously keeps turning up at new crime scenes, and that first murder was the result of another crime some 7 years earlier. 

There's something quietly satisfactory about Macdonald's habit of looking back into the past for cause and motive - his complex family based plots clearly owe a lot to the Greek classics (I expect Freud would have approved) which explains the preoccupation with fate and it's habit of pursuing you like so many furies when you've done wrong. 

Truthfully (and by now obviously) I find this book hard to write about. It's atmospheric, intelligent, has the necessarily funny one liners to counterbalance the grimmer moments, and is altogether a pleasure to read, but what it doesn't do is make me think very deeply, or set me off on tangents to explore - which is part of the appeal. The point, for me, of trying to write about any, and generally all of the books I read, is to try and organise my thoughts about them, and most importantly (for me) to remember them so even when i don't have much to say it feels worthwhile to make the effort! 

The Galton Case - Ross MacDonald

I enjoyed 'The Underground Man' so much that I couldn't help but order the rest of the new Penguin Ross MacDonald's the moment I'd finished it. When I finish those there are plenty more, but published by a couple of different people which is vaguely annoying - a run of matching spines would be far more satisfying. Anyway that's hardly the biggest problem in my life and MacDonald is so good I won't be able to resist those books in whatever shape or state they come in.

'The Galton Case' has everything a good noir thriller needs - a brace of blondes, a hard boiled detective, a couple of bodies, a dodgy lawyer, a rich old lady, and more than a few twists along the way - but that's not nearly all. The premise of 'The Galton Case' is that the rich old lady has decided she wants her missing son back. Anthony Galton disappeared along with his pregnant wife some twenty years previously after his parents disinherited him. The widow Galton is now dying herself and hope it isn't to late for a reconciliation and though everyone else thinks Anthony is most likely dead Lew Archer is put on the case to humour her.

Lew himself is sure that Galton is dead but follows the leads anyway and sure enough a body soon turns up, unfortunately it's just the body - no head, and that makes it hard to identify after twenty years, added to that there's no sign of the mother and child - or is there. A boy who might be Galton's son also turns up but there's something about his story that doesn't quite sit right with Lew and when there's such a lot of money at stake no con would be too elaborate.

So far so good, but there are plenty of authors who could make something good from this particular mix. MacDonald's trick is to make me believe in why his characters behave the way they do; a little bit of psychology goes a long way, that and snappy dialogue. There are plenty of authors who can turn out a decent one liner too, but again MacDonald makes it feel natural - quite dry, somewhat cynical, and often somehow good natured. My only regret with this book was not chasing up a reference to Greek mythology - apparently a lot of MacDonald's plots were based on myths and knowing which one might have added another layer of meaning here, but that's not a huge problem either, it's just something to pay attention to next time I read it.  

The Underground Man - Ross MacDonald

There are few pleasures in life for the reader that beat the feeling you get when you find a promising looking author who is not only new to you but has a sizeable back catalogue to work through. This has been a good reading year for me so far with plenty of happy discoveries but I have a feeling that Ross MacDonald is going to be the most satisfying of the lot. He was a chance discovery that came about after seeing 'The Underground Man' mentioned in a couple of different places, just enough to raise interest and make the name stick so when I found myself with the book in my hand the obvious thing to do was read it immediately.

The tale end of summer, beginning of autumn, has never been my favourite time of year and the older I get the less I like it. My coping strategy is generally shopping or book based and as I'm depressingly broke post holiday (and to make matters worse I accidentally put my camera through the washing machine today - it died in just the way you might expect) so it's strictly books at the moment. Classic hard boiled noire hits the spot for some reason and that's why I'm so pleased with the MacDonald (and okay there may have been a little bit of a book splurge in the last few days).

'The Underground Man' comes late from MacDonald's career, and by extension that of his decidedly world weary private eye Lew Archer. His first book came out in 1949 but this one is from 1971 - another thing to look forward to is going back through some of the older books in the series and seeing how the character of Archer develops along with MacDonald's style as a writer - a quick google suggests this will be interesting.

The action all takes place across a couple of days in a hot Californian September. A forest fire threatens the city and everyone seems hot bothered and angry. Lew meets a neighbours young son whilst feeding the birds, minutes later he becomes a reluctant witness to a row between the boys parents which ends in a likely abduction by the father. There is a mysterious blond in the best tradition who becomes the catalyst for everything unravelling. 

There are a couple of bodies, suitably hard boiled one liners, and yet more mystery women. There is also some vintage cold war paranoia and more complicated family relationships than I could shake a stick at. MacDonald brings a Freudian sensibility to the plot, all his characters are paying the price for earlier traumas as the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children but what at first seems exceptionally bleak also has a distinctly hopeful edge to it.

By the end of the book the fire is under control, the boy is returned to his mother, and there is always the slim chance of learning from the mistakes of the past. All the secrets have been revealed, there's nowhere left to hide and everybody left standing is standing together. It is by turns funny, clever, dark, and startling - I can't wait to read more.