The Barbarous Coast

The Dying Animal

Ross Macdonald's novels featuring private detective Lew Archer have become classics of crime fiction. They are psychological works which explore the greed, unhappiness, and violence just below the surface in what appear to be placid, successful lives. Macdonald's "The Barbarous Coast" (1956) is a relatively early work, the sixth in what became seventeen Lew Archer novels, and it is the second included in the Library of America's anthology of four Archer crime novels from the 1950s. The LOA has published a three-volume anthology of eleven novels in Archer's inimitable voice. Macdonald had originally titled the work "The Dying Animal", a title later used in a far different 2010 novel by the late Philip Roth.

The LOA's introduction to the 1950s compilation states that "The Barbarous Coast" "exposes a world of hidden crime and corruption in the movie business, as Archer intrudes on the well-protected secrets of a studio head. It describes the work as a "gripping and tightly knit drama of madness and self-destruction." The description is accurate as far as it goes. There is much to like in the novel as well as a great deal that is ineffective.

The novel is set in an exclusive private club in Malibu, California, near the beauties of the ocean with scenes in Hollywood and Las Vegas. The novel drew me in at the outset as Archer describes how is is called in to find the missing, estranged wife of a young Canadian sports reporter who had earlier worked at the club as a diver and diving instructor. (The unusual emphasis on diving in this book reminded me of a later and probably more effective crime novel that features a down on his luck high diver: "Tishomingo Blues" by Elmore Leonard.) The assignment proves only part of a long difficult corruption-ridden situation which will lead to at least five brutal killings before it is resolved.

The novel features Hollywood producers and gangsters with Las Vegas ties together with thugs and would be actors and actresses among many other characters. The story includes elements of murder, blackmail, corruption, deceit, professional boxing, and lost, frustrated love. The depictions of places and people in Archer's sharp-eyed observation together with Archer's devotion to doing what is right in circumstances fraught with evil bring the novel to life. The novel includes many detailed scenes of fighting and violence.

The problem with the book lies in its highly involuted plot which essentially is unraveled at the end but which makes for highly confusing reading. The novel is much better in parts and in it writing and descriptions than in its tangled story. In addition, elements of the story are formulaic and shopworn with elements of the tie between Hollywood and Las Vegas, the dark secrets of exclusive beach clubs, and the perils of apparently lost, abused beautiful women at risk from violent criminals that Macdonald had already used before and would use again in subsequent Archer novels.

This novel has a place in the lengthy series of Lew Archer stories, but each book should be considered on its own. The plotting of "The Barbarous Coast" makes the book a lesser effort. While it has its virtues, I don't think that standing alone the book would have merited a place in the Library of America series.

Robin Friedman