Ross MacDonald

Ross Macdonald is the main pseudonym that was used by the American-Canadian writer of crime fiction Kenneth Millar (/ˈmɪlər/; December 13, 1915 – July 11, 1983). He is best known for his series of hardboiled novels set in Southern California and featuring private detective Lew Archer.

Brought up in the province of Ontario, Canada, Macdonald eventually settled in the state of California, where he died in 1983.

Books in order of publication:

Chet Gordon (as Kenneth Millar)

  • The Dark Tunnel (aka I Die Slowly) – 1944
  • Trouble Follows Me (aka Night Train) – 1946

Lew Archer novels

  1. The Moving Target – 1949 (filmed with Paul Newman as Harper, 1966)
  2. The Drowning Pool – 1950 (also filmed with Paul Newman as The Drowning Pool, 1975)
  3. The Way Some People Die – 1951
  4. The Ivory Grin (aka Marked for Murder) – 1952
  5. Find a Victim – 1954
  6. The Barbarous Coast – 1956
  7. The Doomsters – 1958
  8. The Galton Case – 1959
  9. The Wycherly Woman – 1961
  10. The Zebra-Striped Hearse – 1962
  11. The Chill – 1964
  12. The Far Side of the Dollar – 1965 (1965 CWA Gold Dagger Award winner)
  13. Black Money – 1966
  14. The Instant Enemy – 1968
  15. The Goodbye Look – 1969 (filmed as Tayna 1992)
  16. The Underground Man – 1971 (filmed as a television series pilot in 1974)
  17. Sleeping Beauty – 1973
  18. The Blue Hammer – 1976
  19. The Archer Files, The Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer Private Investigator, Including Newly Discovered Case Notes, ed. Tom Nolan – Crippen & Landru, 2007. This contains the contents of The Name Is Archer, the additional stories in Lew Archer, Private Investigator, and the three stories in Strangers in Town. The story “Death by Water” is changed (with the estate’s permission) to feature Lew Archer rather than Joe Rogers. The book also includes eleven “case notes” – beginnings of novels or short stories that Macdonald never completed. The story Guilt-Edged Blonde was adapted into the 2002 French film The Wolf Of The West Coast (Le loup de la côte ouest).

Lew Archer short story collections

  • The Name is Archer (paperback original containing seven stories) – 1955
  • Lew Archer: Private Investigator (The Name is Archer + two additional stories) – 1977
  • Strangers in Town (Two of the three short stories include Lew Archer; one,”Death by Water,” features Joe Rogers) – Crippen & Landru, 2001
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