Back in October, I posted to rara-avis re: BLUE CITY (Dell,
1947) by Kenneth Millar (Ross Macdonald), his third and a
pre-Lew Archer standalone. Tapani mentioned an Oedipus theme
and it was RM's first crime novel. Wikipedia cites Blue City
was made into a film in 1986, starring Judd Nelson, Ally
Sheedy and David Caruso, three years after RM died. I haven't
seen the film.
BC's plot in a nutshell finds John Weather returning home
from the army to find his father, J.D. Weather, was shot and
killed two years before. The rest of the book centers on John
digging into his father's unsolved murder and exposing the
seedy, corrupt town.
Besides the novel's hardboiled tone, I was struck by the
Chandleresque metaphors RM used. My guess is that in 1947 the
device was still fresh and interesting in crime fiction. It's
a fun, h-b read written before the author started the long
Lew Archer series.
Ed Lynskey
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