Find a Victim — Part Five

                              I’ve Got Friends in Low Places       A few slaps with the Sheriff’s automatic have apparently shaken the stupid out of Archer, because his next move, to Kerrigan’s bar, the Golden Slipper, is a good idea.  The bar boasts...

Find a Victim — Part Four

                                      Working the Edges              Nothing happens by accident in a Ross Macdonald book, and the car ride with Hilda Church is no exception. Hilda has issues with men, partly based on her own negative experiences and partly...

Find a Victim — Part Three

              I Swear I Had a Client Around Here Somewhere   In all the Archer books, Macdonald is careful to provide Archer with a client, no matter how far afield the investigation strays from the original assignment. Sometimes Archer foregoes a written...

Find a Victim — Part Two

                    “Great Starts Can Lead to Muddled Middles”                                     –Ross Macdonald, speaking of Find a Victim       Macdonald was always sensitive to the importance of his first scene. He employed many different...

Find a Victim — Part One

                                WHAT THE CRITICS SAY       “Find a Victim is the noir-est of Macdonald’s early Archer novels . . .  the bottom line of Find a Victim is negative . . . Macdonald finds the penal code next to irrelevant in describing or...