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The Galton Case: A Lew Archer Novel (Lew Archer Series Book 8) Kindle Edition
Almost twenty years have passed since Anthony Galton disappeared, along with a suspiciously streetwise bride and several thousand dollars of his family's fortune. Now Anthony's mother wants him back and has hired Lew Archer to find him. What turns up is a headless skeleton, a boy who claims to be Galton's son, and a con game whose stakes are so high that someone is still willing to kill for them. Devious and poetic, The Galton Case displays MacDonald at the pinnacle of his form.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage Crime/Black Lizard
- Publication dateFebruary 23, 2011
- File size608 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The tale opens with detective Lew Archer visiting the swanky offices of a lawyer acquaintance, who engages him to hunt for a long-missing scion of the rich Galton family. Though the case seems fruitless, Archer begins digging. Soon a seemingly unrelated crime intrudes--but Archer tells us, "I hate coincidences." As he roams California (and, briefly, Nevada) following leads and hunches, he gradually uncovers a long-buried tale of deception, hatred, and the power of illusion. As usual, Macdonald can accomplish more with three lines of dialogue and a simple description than most writers can in three pages. The connection between Archer's two cases finally clicks about three-quarters of the way through the book, and the moving denouement, with its final plot twist, takes place in a hardscrabble Canadian boarding house much like those in which Macdonald spent parts of his childhood. The Galton Case is an exceptionally satisfying read on several levels. --Nicholas H. Allison
Review
Exciting, beautifully plotted, and written with taste, perception and compassion. --New York Times Book Review
A model of intelligently engineered excitement. --New Yorker
One of his best. . . . The Macdonald depth of understanding and dispassionate charity come out well, and the story. . . is richly plotted. --San Francisco Chronicle
''The character claiming to be the long-lost heir to the Galton fortune may be an actor, but he's not in the same league with (narrator) Grover Gardner; on the evidence here, few are. PI Lew Archer discovers that while 'John Galton' claims to have been raised in an orphanage in Ohio, he actually grew up in Canada. But listeners can make the same discovery from the very subtly Canadian way he pronounces the word 'about.' Even more fun, the fancy lawyer who hires Archer to find Galton speaks with the exact stagy faux-English accent that the likes of William Powell used in forties films noir; you can absolutely see his big-shouldered 1949 suit and his pencil mustache. Macdonald is at his best here; Gardner is even better. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award.'' --AudioFile
One of his best. . . . The Macdonald depth of understanding and dispassionate charity come out well, and the story. . . is richly plotted. --San Francisco Chronicle
From the Inside Flap
From the Back Cover
About the Author
Ross Macdonald (1915-1983) was the pen name of Kenneth Millar. Born near San Francisco but raised in British Columbia, he returned to the United States as a young man and published his first novel in 1944. For over twenty years he lived in Santa Barbara and wrote mystery novels about the fascinating and changing society of his native state. He is widely credited with elevating the detective novel to the level of literature with his compactly written tales of murder and despair. His works have received awards from the Mystery Writers of America and of Great Britain, and his book The Moving Target was made into the movie Harper in 1966. In 1982 he was awarded the Eye Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Private Eye Writers of America.
Grover Gardner is an award-winning narrator with over eight hundred titles to his credit. Named one of the "Best Voices of the Century" and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards, was chosen Narrator of the Year for 2005 by Publishers Weekly, and has earned more than thirty Earphones Awards.
From AudioFile
Product details
- ASIN : B004HFRJBM
- Publisher : Vintage Crime/Black Lizard (February 23, 2011)
- Publication date : February 23, 2011
- Language : English
- File size : 608 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 258 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0679768645
- Best Sellers Rank: #530,565 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,020 in Lawyers & Criminals Humor
- #2,233 in Hard-Boiled Mysteries (Kindle Store)
- #4,222 in Private Investigator Mysteries (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
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All of Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer mysteries are worth reading, but this one represents a peak in his middle period, just as The Way Some People Die is his peak early novel.
There is definitely a formula which every Lew Archer novel follows- a unsolved crime in the past, a troubled young man in the present. This time, it is a young man who may be the heir to a fortune:
"What was the name of the orphanage?"
"Crystal Springs. It's near Cleveland. They didn't call it an orphanage. They called it a Home. Which didn't make it any more homelike."
"You say your mother put you there?" I said.
"When I was four."
"Do you remember your mother?"
"Of course. I remember her face, especially. She was very pale and thin, with blue eyes. I think she must have been sick. She had a bad cough. Her voice was husky, very low and soft. I remember the last thing she ever said to me: Your daddy's name was John Brown, too, and you were born in California.' I didn't know what or where California was, but I held on to the word. You can see why I had to come here, finally." His voice seemed to have the resonance of his life behind it.
It is bracing to read 'critical,' even derogatory reviews of a book you really like. Ross Macdonald is not John Macdonald, but that doesn't mean his stories are less realistic. Is the following hard-boiled, or not?
He held his brother's head possessively against his shoulder. In the light of the stars they seemed like twins, mirror images of each other. Roy looked at Tommy in a puzzled way, as if he couldn't tell which was the real man and which was the reflection. Or which was the possessor and which was the possessed.
Footfalls thudded in the dust behind me. It was Mrs. Fredericks, wearing a bathrobe and carrying a pan of water. "Here," was all she said. She handed me the pan and went back into the house. She wanted no part of the trouble in the street. Her house was well supplied with trouble.
I had a fond recollection of this book from several years ago, but found the details fresh and compelling, and the story almost heart-breaking, once again. A superb book.
This was my first read in the Lew Archer series, and I had heard positive comments about this and the series in general prior to my read. After finishing, I’m glad this series has been brought to my attention and I’ll definitely look into more in the series.
The Galton Case involves Archer being summoned to help an elderly woman track down her son (Anthony) who has been missing for some twenty years. It seems that, along with Anthony Galton, a sum of the family fortune also went missing around that same time. A family lawyer gives Archer the ins and outs of the family and the parameters for what he can and cannot reveal in his search. Archer seems to think, and with good reason, that there are quite a few secrets that are hidden under the surface of this investigation concerning many of the key principle characters. Suffice to say, the con game gets very thick about midway through, and the plot heads to quite a complex (and somewhat complicated) ending. As Archer learns more and more key clues, he takes a detour to what he believes will solve this riddle.
There much to admire about MacDonald’s work and writing. Within the scope of the plot, there is a subplot with a bit of psych0analysis, which I found rather interesting. At points, we definitely zoom in on several characters and examine them under the microscope for motives and reasons, and I thought that angle was particularly fascinating. MacDonald weaves a story with both complexity and attention to minimalist yet quality prose which makes for a fine reading experience, and Archer is there to lead the way.
I do believe that The Galton Case is a perfect way to start the Archer series if you haven’t started yet, but are interested.
One caution, though. My impression when I read them many years ago was that Macdonald's very last novels showed a puzzling mediocrity. Then it was reported that Macdonald had died of complications stemming from Alzheimer's disease. I'd guess he was in decline and bravely carrying on in those last novels. So to read the best Ross Macdonald, we should probably avoid them. "The Galton Case" is a fine example of Macdonald in his prime. It's rich with quiet but telling metaphors. We constantly get the sense of something perfectly rendered. And there is a real mystery in this story. Lew Archer solves it through persistent insight, trial, and error, until the final surprise bulls us over. On the one hand, the end really surprised me; on the other hand, it explained everything.
Top reviews from other countries
fan for so many years and constantly bemoaned the fact that he wrote so few full length novels. The taut plotting, the noir narrative in the first person
and the sometimes hilarious wit that we associated with Chandler's Marlowe is all there. What a breath of fresh air, after being unimpressed by so many modern crime writers (even best-selling ones) that I have tried. Im working my way through MacDonald books at quite a pace. As with Chandler, when I have read them all, I plan to start all over again!