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The Ivory Grin (Lew Archer Series) Paperback – July 10, 2007
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Traveling from sleazy motels to stately seaside manors, The Ivory Grin is one of Lew Archer's most violent and macabre cases ever.
A hard-faced woman clad in a blue mink stole and dripping with diamonds hires Lew Archer to track down her former maid, who she claims has stolen her jewelry. Archer can tell he's being fed a line, but curiosity gets the better of him and he accepts the case. He tracks the wayward maid to a ramshackle motel in a seedy, run-down small town, but finds her dead in her tiny room, with her throat slit from ear to ear. Archer digs deeper into the case and discovers a web of deceit and intrigue, with crazed number-runners from Detroit, gorgeous triple-crossing molls, and a golden-boy shipping heir who’s gone mysteriously missing.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Publication dateJuly 10, 2007
- Dimensions5.19 x 0.58 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100307278999
- ISBN-13978-0307278999
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About the Author
Ross Macdonald's real name was Kenneth Millar. Born near San Francisco in 1915 and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Millar returned to the U.S. as a young man and published his first novel in 1944. He served as the president of the Mystery Writers of America and was awarded their Grand Master Award as well as the Mystery Writers of Great Britain's Silver Dagger Award. He died in 1983.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Product details
- Publisher : Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; Reprint edition (July 10, 2007)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307278999
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307278999
- Item Weight : 7.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.19 x 0.58 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #462,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,123 in Hard-Boiled Mystery
- #9,528 in Amateur Sleuths
- #25,911 in Suspense Thrillers
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... Two pale hands sprang out from his dark silhouette and gripped the bars framing his face. He swayed from side to side, and I saw the white blaze on one side of his tangled head. His shoulders writhed. He seemed to be trying to wrench the bars out of their concrete sockets. Each time he tried and failed, he said one word in a low growling guttural. “Hell,” he said. “Hell. Hell.” The word fell heavily from his mouth forty or fifty times while his body tugged and heaved, flinging itself violently from side to side. He left the window then, as suddenly as he had appeared in it. I watched his slow shadow retreat across the ceiling and dissolve out of human shape.
Re-reading it, wondering why it didn't make the cut in the Library of America (it is far better than THE DOOMSTERS), I did notice some very 'writerly' similes and descriptions. A more experienced writer can do more with less. The final chapters, however, are so satisfying and well-written- a virtual descent into the Hell foreshadowed in the passage quoted above- that I was willing to forgive Macdonald all minor flaws. That extremely corny, intentionally corny line, "This is the payoff, Wionowski," is so startling in context, and yet so well prepared by the entire book (we are dealing with the Purple Gang, for crying out loud) that I lost all doubt. This is a great book.
It has the beginning of devices that he would use later, the wealthy widow and instances of mistaken identity.
The writing has his characteristic tone and it moves along briskly. Not a literary book, but high-quality commercial fiction. Very entertaining.
The story telling is effortless and the details that MacDonald describes paint the scenes for you perfectly. He describes the atmosphere and surroundings as if he is standing there and is reporting it live to you.
Lew Archer stories are about right and wrongs. About people doing the bad things and the people who are doing the right things. These are simple directive stories with simple formula of one of more persons doing something bad or wrong and others trying to right it or find the truth with Lew Archer in the middle of it.
But don't get me wrong, these aren't simple books and they are filled with ahead of its time judgements. Lew Archer is the sound of the reason in these books. So get the whole series and read them; read them all and savor them because nothing like these books will come around in our lifetimes again.
Nothing like Lew Archer books will ever be written again. Ever.
The Ivory Grin is a remarkable example of detective fiction. Its two greatest strengths are the vividness with which the characters are drawn and the precision with which the multiple plot threads blend together. Highly recommended.
Nothing new here just a good story. I really liked this book.
And the series is definitely the better for it. We get more empathy from Archer, and both less judgement, and less of his personal backstory: no mention of his ex-wife, beyond the fact of his divorce, and a single mention of his prior career in law enforcement in Long Beach. There’s no need to mention that Archer was fired from the police force for refusing to take kickbacks. We know by his actions that he’s not on the grift-in part by contrasting what Archer does with the moves made by a competitor who is grubby and bent to the core.
There were some plot holes (if you invoke “the Mob” they had better make an appearance, especially if one of your characters is making money off them for no visible return. Racketeers in the ‘50s were known neither for their benevolence nor for their stupidity.), but as a mass character study THE IVORY GRIN is a great read, and as usually seems to be the case with MacDonald’s work, the third act is a freight train running downhill toward a violent conclusion growing inexorably clearer in the distance.