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The moving target

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The Moving Target, originally published in 1949, is Ross MacDonald's first Lew Archer novel. While Archer's character has yet to fully blossom, most of MacDonald's typical story devices are represented; an interconnected trail of escalating violence, innocent youth, duel identities and a twist ending that makes you rethink the entire novel.

Who kidnapped wealthy alcoholic Ralph Samson? Was it the cult leader Samson mysteriously gifted his mountain reteat to? His bitter cripppled wife? Or perhaps his youthful pilot or aging lawyer trapped in a love triangle with Sampson's daughter. It's up to Archer to find out, and take a few beatings on the way.

The literary private detective novel reached its zenith with the creation of Lew Archer, the last legitimate heir to the Chandler/Marlowe tradition. This first novel in the series is still close enough to the 1940s roots of the genre to evoke the peak period of noir fiction, and introduces some of the best writing ever to grace a mystery story. Later novels in this series, which extended into the 1970s, variably fell victim to then-trendy ideas about psychiatry that mar their realism and temper the otherwise shrewd and sympathetic voice of Lew Archer. The early books still display all the virtuosity of good writing with tight plots and a believable narrator. Kenneth Millar, who wrote under the pseudonym Ross MacDonald, has produced some of the best similes in English, and they pop up like gems in the early books. In "The Moving Target", film fans will recognize the plot from "Harper", which cast Paul Newman in the starring role. (He insisted on changing the hero's name for the movie, apparently because he doesn't like to play characters whose names start with "A"). But the narrative voice is what makes these novels something special, and that just doesn't translate to the screen. This is a great novel masquerading as a mystery.

This book starts out like the typical mystery novel . . . with a mystery, a detective, and the hint of trouble. However, before long, you can't help but realize this book is no typical mystery.

This book is paced as furiously as any mystery, but it carries the depth of true literature. This is simply no mystery to be solved or adventure to be told. The Moving Target is the sordid tale of a sade family the growth of a young woman.

Who knew Ross MacDonald was so good? I guess I'll have to order more books by him. If Hammett gave birth to noir and Chandler taught it how to walk, then MacDonald provided the education. I'm very impressed!

First published in 1949, The Moving Target is one of Ross Macdonald's earlier novels. Action packed and nicely paced, the narrative of this book is noticeably less convoluted than many of the other entries in the Macdonald canon.

As hardboiled PI Lew Archer searches high and low to locate missing millionaire Ralph Sampson, he encounters more than a few very interesting characters along the way. These include Sampson's paraplegic wife Elaine, his headstrong 20 year old daughter Miranda, Claude a bearded prophet of questionable repute and Fay Estabrook an aging film star who doubles as an astrologer.

While successfully relating this intriguing mystery, Macdonald simultaneously manages to paint a vivid picture of life in the Southern California of the immediate postwar era.

The Moving Target is an engaging detective novel that deftly brings to life the place and time in which it unfolds. Must reading for those who enjoy California noir.

When listing the greats of Noir detective fiction, Macdonald seems all too often to be left off the list. The Moving Target, with its introduction of the wonderful Lew Archer character, is a good place to begin with his writing and one of the best in the series.

The Moving Target explores a wide variety of relationships that turn poisonous-- husband and wife, brother and sister, lovers both requited and unrequited, employer and servant, and lawyers and the law. Originally said to have been titled "The Snatch" (vetoed for obvious reasons), it tells the story of the kidnapping of an eccentric oil millionaire named Ralph Sampson. Lew Archer is hired to help get him back, but he quickly begins to wonder if anyone wants Sampson to return.

While all the characters are interesting, the addicted jazz pianist Betty Fraley is particularly complex and well-drawn. A very good read.

"The Moving Target," (1949) was the first novel Canadian-American hard-boiled mystery author Kenneth Millar published under his pseudonym "Ross Macdonald;" it was also the first novel to feature his most famous, California-based gumshoe, Lew Archer. He had first introduced the character in a 1944 published short story, "Find the Woman;" "Target" would be followed by seventeen more neo-noir Archer novels.

Like most of his best work, the book is set in California, in the Los Angeles-Santa Barbara area (the author was born in California, then was taken to Canada by his Canadian parents; he lived up north through his first year at college. He then lived most of his life, and died, in Santa Barbara. In his books, he called Santa Barbara "Santa Teresa.") In the book at hand, Archer is called upon to help the Sampson family out of its troubles. Papa Sampson, a rich man, has disappeared, and is soon found to be kidnapped. In this first Archer novel, the writer uses a family configuration he will use many times again: rich, powerful father, wayward daughter or son, vain and greedy second wife. This first, post World War II, book also boasts one of Macdonald's trademark complex plots, with many characters: it's always hard to guess the ending to one of his books. Furthermore, this first book also illustrates his career-long tendency to have plots turn on family secrets from long ago among the clients, or among the criminals that victimize them.

Macdonald is always considered the first, and one of the greatest, followers of the hard-boiled, neo-noir writers Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. In this book, several of the major characters are clearly Chandleresque; this sort of thing will become less marked as the author found his own voice. Mind you, the book is well-written: if anything, it is overly well-written. But, in addition to a complicated plot, the dialogue crackles, and the nature writing is strong. He is considered to have added psychological depth and insights into the motivations of his characters to the Chandler/Hammett formula: to have combined the mystery "whodunit" with the psychological thriller. A couple of Canadian "Eh's" (they just can't finish a sentence without one) sneak into this book, or maybe it's just that the copy editors missed a few.

The book's worth reading on its own terms, not least for the fascinating descriptions of post-war LA. The geological country, of course, remains much the same, and many of the important roads are already there, but oh, the empty beaches, the orange-grove filled Orange County, the vision of Brentwood and Venice, say, as small isolated towns: the change men have wrought in Southern California since Macdonald wrote is just fascinating. But some things remain the same -- what man wouldn't want a hot new car, and a hot, modern girl sitting beside him?

I have been on a Ross Macdonald binge. Perhaps if I had more capacity as a literary critic I would know why I am reading so much of him and why I find his novels so affecting. It's certainly not the plots, which seem almost incidental to the depiction of character, just a loose structure to covey to the reader the inevitable unravelling of everyone's universally unhappy fate. All the characters are on the long or the quick slide into emotional trauma and chaos, bitter, resigned aloneness or death. After just one Archer novel the reader cannot harbor any illusions about happy endings, not for the novel, Archer or whichever sad person surives to struggle through another day.

So what is it all about? Depicting reality. Samuel Johnson said something to the effect of "nothing last long or holds true other than the just representation of human nature." Macdonald lasts I believe because he paints the dark American reality of searching, questing, dreaming for that elusive score. He seems to suggest that until we can realize that the "score" itself is not worth a hill of beans there is little hope. But his novels are also full of a great many scam artists who pretend that they have learned that but really haven't a clue. Most of them are quasi-religious con men or women. So perhaps Macdonald wants us to realize that neither he nor Archer know what to substitute for that lust for the "score." So they just bumble along trying to do less harm than good, just as alone at the end as at the beginning but with a little more circulation on them and a little less faith that there is a way out other than arriving at the finish line with as few illusions as possible.

"The Moving Target" by Ross MacDonald is the first book in the Lew Archer series. Archer is a private detective in post-WWII Los Angeles. The author doesn't provide much background information about his detective, though the reader does learn he is divorced and once was a member of the Los Angeles police department.

The plot of "The Moving Target" centers on the apparent kidnapping of a rich man in Santa Theresa (think Santa Barbara). In the process of finding the kidnapped man, Lew Archer meets a variety of "characters" with a southern California feel to them: decadent rich people, thugs, a former actress on the decline, a drug-using club singer, and a supposed holy man living in the mountains. The plot moves along well, and the resolution is a surprise though the denouement is a bit unrewarding. The actions of one of the characters in the resolution isn't explained to my satisfaction.

MacDonald's books follow in the steps of other writers of the "hardboiled" mystery genre, according to some experts. This book has that feel, a noir feel, to it . In particular, a lot of the dialogue is kitschy and stylized almost to the point of being silly. Still, I found the book interesting and will read more of the Lew Archer series.

Ross Macdonald's The Moving Target was written in 1949 and commenced what might well be the best detective fiction of all time (certainly in the top two or three with Chandler and Hammett).

We get to meet Lew Archer, a man in his mid 30's who has seen a lot and done a lot, and seems world-weary. MacDonald gave more of Archer's background story in this novel than he would in future books and the story itself is a bit more violent than later books would be.

MacDonald had the knack of building family dramas that always tended to end badly for the family. The sins of the past would be revealed and the family secrets exposed. This theme is prevalent throughout the Archer series.

In this (quite short) novel, we see Archer being employed by a millionaire's wife to find her missing husband. We get to meet the wife, the spoilt daughter, her disinterested young male friend and Archer's friend who is also the older man yearning for the rich man's daughters love.

Is this MacDonald's best book? No, not by any stretch but it has the makings of a great series of detective fiction that lasted from 1949 to 1976 and established the author as a top flight novelist.

"Her voice was clear and fresh, but the sickness was there in her laugh, a little clatter of bitterness under the trill," private detective Lew Archer says of his new client. She wants him to find her rich husband, who, it seems, gave his private pilot the slip and went off on his own. Not an unusual occurrence, she explains, but the man has been known to do foolish things when he is drunk and unsupervised. He tends to give things away -- things she that will be hers when he dies.

The case of the missing Ralph Sampson sets the plot in motion in "The Moving Target", the first book in Ross MacDonald's series featuring Lew Archer. Copyrighted in 1949, the book contains all of the elements of the classic tough guy, PI genre of the period. Characters include Sampson's beautiful daughter who seems to be in love with his handsome, indifferent pilot; the family attorney, an old friend of Archer's, who seems to be in love with the daughter; a shady nightclub owner; his movie actress wife, whose star has almost faded; an attractive has-been pianist; and a strange "spiritual" advisor, who lives on the mountain Sampson gave him. There are guns, fist fights, beatings, uncooperative cops, and mysterious chauffeurs. There are Archer's thoughts on life and things that shout there is more going on than first meets the eye (so to speak).

All of this makes for an enjoyable read that is somewhat reminiscent of John D. MacDonald and echoes Raymond Chandler. This is not the best book in the series, but it is the place to start reading the Archer books and a good read -- even if at least one of the bad guys seems pretty evident to the reader before Archer seems to tumble to him.