The Far Side of the Dollar: a Lew Archer Novel [Paperback]

Ross Macdonald (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam (1979)
• ASIN: B00124ZMLK
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,047,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MacDonald's masterpiece, June 9, 2002

By 

Todd M. Pence (Fairfax, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Far Side of the Dollar (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) (Paperback)

Ross MacDonald's (aka Kenneth Millar) Lew Archer novels are probably the greatest modern detective series ever, although the insistence of MacDonald to use the same formulaic elements in his books over and over and over again mean that the novels are better read individually than collectively. With that in mind, The Far Side Of The Dollar is your best bet, as it is the example of MacDonald's formula at its best and most poignant. Other superior Archer novels include The Chill, The Doomsters and The Zebra-Striped Hearse, in addition to the magnificent short story collection The Name Is Archer. Whichever Archer novel you decide to read, make sure to keep a scorecard, because the intricate plots make it hard to keep track of all the various characters and their relationships to one another.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A substantive mystery., August 20, 2006

By 

Michael G. "mikefromrochester" (Rochester, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: The Far Side of the Dollar (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) (Paperback)

Chapter I of The Far Side of the Dollar finds veteran PI Lew Archer visiting a reform school for rich teenagers. Young Thomas Hillman a recent admission to the facility has gone AWOL and Archer has been hired by the school's headmaster to find him. A fairly straightforward case, right? Wrong. As in all Ross Macdonald novels, the plot becomes ever increasingly intricate as the narrative unfolds.

There's plenty of standard Ross Macdonald fare packed into the pages of this very engaging book. Family dysfunction that spans the generations, hidden blood relationships between characters, a young person's journey to claim a birthright heretofore denied as well as jealousy and greed leading to murder most foul.

The "readability" of The Far Side of the Dollar is greatly enhanced by its wonderfully insightful descriptive prose. Another very appealling aspect to this novel is the extremely vivid and at times emotionally wrenching way the characters are developed. Highly recommended.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Far Side of the Dollar: worth every penny, September 28, 2004

By 

Amy "Aimskee" (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Far Side of the Dollar (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) (Paperback)

Ross MacDonald infuses eloquence into the lips of his tough detective, Lew Archer. In this mystery, Archer is hired to find the kidnapped son of a couple seriously alienated from one another. The teenage boy has fallen into the wrong hands, partly through his own doing, having run away from a reform school after finding out some startling facts about his background. The mastery the author exhibits as he describes emotions through imagery of the California landscape is poetic and conveys a sense of shattered lives. The reader feels as if the Pacific coast has been transformed into a map of one family's existential angst. This is a powerful mystery worth reading.