'I can't make your girl come back if she doesn't want to. I told you that on the phone...' When Lew Archer is hired to find out the truth about a suspiciously suave Frenchman who has run off with his client's girlfriend, it looks like a simple enough case. But things start to look very different when Archer connects the elusive foreigner with a seven-year-old suicide and a mountain of gambling debts. BLACK MONEY is Ross Macdonald at his very finest, revealing the skull beneath the sun-kissed skin of Southern California.
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'I can't make your girl come back if she doesn't want to. I told you that on the phone...' When Lew Archer is hired to find out the truth about a suspiciously suave Frenchman who has run off with his client's girlfriend, it looks like a simple enough case. But things start to look very different when Archer connects the elusive foreigner with a seven-year-old suicide and a mountain of gambling debts. BLACK MONEY is Ross Macdonald at his very finest, revealing the skull beneath the sun-kissed skin of Southern California.
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Add this copy of Black Money to cart. $5.86, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Ruby rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Phoenix.
Edition:
2011, Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
Publisher:
Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
Published:
2011
Language:
English
Alibris ID:
18085425461
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Add this copy of Black Money to cart. $29.02, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Phoenix.
Edition:
2011, Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
The title of Ross MacDonald's 1966 novel, "Black Money" refers to money skimmed off the top from gambling winnings in Las Vegas and elsewhere to avoid reporting the gains to the Internal Revenue Service. Illicit black money and many other crimes of lust and greed are central to the novel which is narrated by Macdonald's redoubtable detective, Lew Archer, and is a late work in his Lew Archer series.
The story begins simply enough when a man in his 20s of wealthy background, Peter Jameson, hires Archer to investigate an apparent wealthy young Frenchman, Martel, who has stolen the affections of Peter's fiancee and long time sweetheart, Ginnie. The story gradually cascades into a series of shady dealings extending seven years into the past and ultimately resulting in three murders as Archer uncovers a web of lust and greed.
The story has a strong sense of place. It is largely set in a wealthy tennis club just south of Los Angeles. Archer brings to light the secret lives of many of the long-term patrons of this seemingly placid, well-to-do club. Several members of the club were involved with vicious Las Vegas gamblers and have become heavily in their debt. The story also has a setting in academia, particularly in the teaching of French. The story of the rich and their difficulties is juxtaposed against some poor individuals in the community. And there is an international element to the story as well.
The setting, characterizations, and language of Macdonald's novel are as important as the tangled mystery and make the book more than a clever who-done-it. There is a strong feeling of wasted lives in the book with little in the way of redemption. Macdonald tells a story of human frailty and greed. The novel shows the strong influence of Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby".
This was my first novel by Ross Macdonald and I hope to read more. The Library of America has published three volumes of Macdonald's novels, and "Black Money" is included in the third and final volume. To accompany the release of the volume, the LOA published an online essay by Tom Nolan, "Gatsby as noir: the genesis of Ross Macdonald's Black Money." The essay helped me in my reading. It showed the painstaking care Macdonald took with the novel which was his own favorite among his books. Nolan also developed useful background for the places in the novel which, until its late stages, had the title of this review as its working title. I enjoyed this book and learned as well from the comments of my fellow online reviewers.
