Word: macdonald
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Blue Hammer, Macdonald...
...BLUE HAMMER by ROSS MACDONALD 270 pages. Knopf...
...There are certain families whose members should all live in different towns-different states, if possible-and write each other letters once a year." This opinion comes from Private Eye Lew Archer, and he should know. As the hero in 19 earlier Ross Macdonald thrillers, Archer has become an expert in cankered genealogical trees; no sooner does he undertake an investigation of one man's family than he turns up the House of Atreus...
...Blue Hammer, Macdonald is once more obsessed with the sins of the fathers and mothers. Archer is hired to retrieve a stolen painting, the work of an artist named Richard Chantry, who disappeared without a trace 25 years earlier. Or did he? New paintings in the Chantry style begin cropping up; either they are forgeries or reports of the artist's death have been greatly exaggerated. Archer is soon contending with new murders and old graves, not to mention several wayward young people and a host of Chantry relatives, lovers and enemies...
First Love. Macdonald dexterously amasses Implausibly complex evidence. Happily, this book is stripped of the ponderous gothic ruminations that began to infect Archer's thinking several novels ago. Even under the influence of his first love affair in years, the detective manages to toe the line between world-weariness and sentimentality. If The Blue Hammer does not rank with Macdonald's best, the blame can be laid partially to earlier successes. The author's formula has by now entered the public domain. Not only do his characters seem to know this-and to act out their parts...