The Far Side of the Dollar (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) (Paperback)

~ Ross Macdonald (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Has Tom Hillman run away from his exclusive reform school, or has he been kidnapped? Are his wealthy parents protecting him or their own guilty secrets? And why does every clue lead Lew Archer to an abandoned Hollywood hotel, where starlets and sailors once rubbed shoulders with grifters--and where the present clientele includes a brand-new corpse.

From the Inside Flap

Has Tom Hillman run away from his exclusive reform school, or has he been kidnapped? Are his wealthy parents protecting him or their own guilty secrets? And why does every clue lead Lew Archer to an abandoned Hollywood hotel, where starlets and sailors once rubbed shoulders with grifters--and where the present clientele includes a brand-new corpse.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (November 26, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553129147
• ISBN-13: 978-0679768654
• ASIN: 0679768653
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #263,542 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #15 in

  Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( M ) > Macdonald, Ross

• This is item 13 in The Lew Archer Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 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)

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.

2 of 2 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

Amazon Verified Purchase

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.

3 of 4 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

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.