Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief

Ross Macdonald has put forward a book set in the time of the great classic hard-boiled mysteries of yester-year... Maltise Falcon, The Big Sleep... 'Meet me at the Morgue' has all of the qualities of a good Chandler or Hammett novel. This is a stand alone novel I think. It does not contain Macdonalds character Lew Archer. Instead we are dealing with a moral parol officer who finds himself in the center of a kidnapping. As... Read Full Review

Meet Me at the Morgue takes place in Pacific Point, California, a seaside town just south of Los Angeles. Four year old Jamie Johnson, the son of one of the community's richest men, has been kidnapped. The ransom is $50,000. Howard Cross is the narrator of this well written novel. He's a local County Probation Officer who suddenly finds himself at the center of the investigation. This book has much to recommend it. As... Read Full Review

Ross MacDonald is quite well known for his series of mysteries starring Lew Archer as the erstwhile detective. In this kidnapping / murder mystery, the Lew Archer stand-in is a probation officer who admits he lives on several sides at once. This novel shares several themes with his Lew Archer series. One's past sins do come back to bite you; women inevitably ruin their life with the wrong man; and an absent father will... Read Full Review