Galton Case - Hardcover

Macdonald, Ross

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0850318955 ISBN 13: 9780850318951

Publisher: Allison & Busby, 1989

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

The Galton Case, published in 1959, was Ross Macdonald's breakthrough book. Its predecessors are craftsmanlike, highly literate, hard-boiled detective stories; The Galton Case and most of its successors are literature that happens to inhabit the detective-story form. For Macdonald the man, Galton was the first book in which he explored his deepest personal concerns (he was the child of a broken home who was passed from relative to relative in his youth). For readers, it's the book in which he first perfected the balancing act that became his trademark: a tightly written page-turner that also probes profound themes and frequently rises to something like poetry.

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

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. 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Allison & Busby
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0850318955
• ISBN 13: 9780850318951
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 186