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This page lists novels, short story collections, and non-fiction books by Ross MacDonald.

Ross MacDonald was the main writing pseudonym used by Kenneth Millar. Millar published his first few novels using his own name and then briefly used the names John MacDonald and John Ross MacDonald before adopting Ross MacDonald.

Some of the novels listed have been published a number of times. The cover images shown are, where possible, the first US edition and a recent mass market paperback edition.

By Ross MacDonald
- novels / short story collections

About Ross MacDonald
- biographical / critical

The Dark Tunnel

Keith Millar

1944

Later editions published as by Ross MacDonald.

"In 1937 Munich, an American must be careful when he smokes his pipe. Robert Branch, a careless academic, makes the mistake of lighting up when the Führer is about to begin a procession, and nearly gets pummeled for his mistake. Only the timely intervention of Ruth Esch, a flame-haired actress, saves him. So begins a month-long romance between East and West—a torrid affair that ends when the lovers make the mistake of defending a Jew, earning Branch a beating and Esch a trip to a concentration camp. Six years later, Esch escapes to Vichy and makes her way to Detroit. To her surprise, Branch is waiting for her. He is a professor, working for the war effort, and his paranoia about a spy inside the Motor City war board sours their reunion. Once again, a dangerous net is encircling these lovers - a reminder that, in this war, love always comes second to death."

Trouble Follows Me

Keith Millar

1946

Later editions published as by Ross MacDonald.

" It is February 1945, and the war in the Pacific is nearing its climax. In Hawaii on his way to a new post, US Navy ensign Sam Drake stumbles across the girl of his dreams. Mary is a disc jockey, with a voice that’s famous across the islands for playing late-night jazz that no young lover can resist. Before he can follow this modern siren home, they go to check on Mary’s coworker Sue - but that lovely young lady will never spin another record. They find her strung up and dangling outside the window of a bathroom, her face twisted into an ugly mask. The police call it suicide, but Sam is not so sure. Few beautiful women, even suicidal ones, are willing to be so hideous in death. Looking into Sue’s past, he finds another corpse—and a dangerous conspiracy that stretches all the way back to his Motor City home."

Blue City

Kenneth Millar

1947

Later editions published as by Ross MacDonald.

"He was a son who hadn't known his father very well. It was a town shaken by a grisly murder - his father's murder. Johnny Weatherly was home from a war and wandering. When he found out that his father had been assassinated on a street corner and that his father's seductive young wife had inherited a fortune, he started knocking on doors. The doors came open, and Johnny stepped into a world of gamblers, whores, drug-dealers, and blackmailers, a place in which his father had once moved freely. Now Johnny Weatherly was going to solve this murder - by pitting his rage, his courage, and his lost illusions against the brutal underworld that has overtaken his hometown."

The Three Roads

Kenneth Millar

1948

Later editions published as by Ross MacDonald.

"Silken skin pale against dark hair, red lips provocatively smiling at him--that's how Lieutenant Bret Taylor remembered Lorraine. He was drunk when he married her, stone cold sober when he found her dead. Out on the sunlit streets of L.A. walked the man--her lover, her killer--who had been with her that fatal night. Taylor intended to find him. And when he did, the gun in his pocket would provide the quickest kind of justice. But first Taylor had to find something else: an elusive memory so powerful it drove him down three terrifying roads toward self-destruction--grief, ecstasty, and death."

The Moving Target

John Macdonald

1949

Later editions published as by Ross MacDonald.

A Lew Archer novel.

" Like many Southern California millionaires, Ralph Sampson keeps odd company. There's the sun-worshipping holy man whom Sampson once gave his very own mountain; the fading actress with sidelines in astrology and S&M. Now one of Sampson's friends may have arranged his kidnapping. As Lew Archer follows the clues from the canyon sanctuaries of the megarich to jazz joints where you get beaten up between sets, The Moving Target blends sex, greed, and family hatred into an explosively readable crime novel."

The Drowning Pool

John Ross Macdonald

1950

Later editions published as by Ross MacDonald.

A Lew Archer novel.

"When Maude Slocum - beautiful, frightened and angry - comes to Lew Archer's office with a poison pen letter intended for her husband, he reluctantly agrees to help her. As he follows the Slocums around, Archer finds that Mrs Slocum might have the least of the family's troubles: her teenage daughter is desolate, her husband is in the closet and her mother-in-law has just come to an unpleasant end in the swimming pool. But why is their handsome ex-chauffeur still hanging around? And what does the sinister Pacific Refinery Company have to do with the all the bloodshed? The Drowning Pool is Ross Macdonald's gripping tale of adultery, jealousy, murder and lies."

The Way Some People Die

John Ross Macdonald

1951

Later editions published as by Ross MacDonald.

A Lew Archer novel.

"In a rundown house in Santa Monica, Mrs. Samuel Lawrence presses fifty crumpled bills into Lew Archer's hand and asks him to find her wandering daughter, Galatea. Described as 'crazy for men' and without discrimination, she was last seen driving off with small-time gangster Joe Tarantine, a hophead hood with a rep for violence. Archer traces the hidden trail from San Francisco slum alleys to the luxury of Palm Springs, traveling through an urban wilderness of drugs and viciousness. As the bodies begin to pile up, he finds that even angel faces can mask the blackest of hearts.Filled with dope, delinquents and murder, this is classic Macdonald and one of his very best in the Lew Archer series."

The Ivory Grin

John Ross Macdonald

1952

Later editions published as by Ross MacDonald.

A Lew Archer novel.

"A hard-faced woman clad in a blue mink stole and dripping with diamonds hires Lew Archer to track down her former maid, who she claims has stolen her jewelry. Archer can tell he's being fed a line, but curiosity gets the better of him and he accepts the case. He tracks the wayward maid to a ramshackle motel in a seedy, run-down small town, but finds her dead in her tiny room, with her throat slit from ear to ear. Archer digs deeper into the case and discovers a web of deceit and intrigue, with crazed number-runners from Detroit, gorgeous triple-crossing molls, and a golden-boy shipping heir who’s gone mysteriously missing."

Meet Me at the Morgue

John Ross Macdonald

1953

Later editions published as by Ross MacDonald.

"Somebody in Pacific Point is guilty of a kidnapping, but what probation officer Howard Cross wants to find most is innocence: in an ex-war hero who has taken a tough manslaughter rap, in a wealthy woman with a heart full of secrets, and in a blue-eyed beauty who has lost her way. The trouble is that the abduction has already turned to murder, and the more Cross pries into the case the further he slips into a pool of violence and evil. Somewhere in the California desert the whole scheme may come down on the wrong man. Somewhere Cross is going to find the last piece of a bloody puzzle--a mystery of blackmail, passion, and hidden identities that might be better left unsolved."

Find a Victim

John Ross Macdonald

1954

Later editions published as by Ross MacDonald.

A Lew Archer novel.

"Las Cruces wasn't a place most travelers would think to stop. But after private investigator Lew Archer plays the good samaritan and picks up a bloodied hitchhiker, he finds himself in town for a few days awaiting a murder inquest. A hijacked truck full of liquor and an evidence box full of marijuana, $20,000 from a big-time bank heist by a small-time crook, corruption, adultery, incest, prodigal daughters, and abused wives all make the little town seem a lot more interesting than any guide book ever could. And as the murder rate rises, Archer finds himself caught up in mystery where everyone is a suspect and everyone's a victim."

The Name is Archer

John Ross Macdonald

1955

Later editions published as by Ross MacDonald and include additional stories.

Lew Archer short stories.

The contents are:

• Find the Woman
• Gone Girl
• The Bearded Lady
• The Suicide
• Guilt-Edged Blonde
• The Sinister Habit
• Wild Goose Chase

The Barbarous Coast

Ross Macdonald

1956

A Lew Archer novel.

"The beautiful, high-diving blonde had Hollywood dreams and stars in her eyes but now she seems to have disappeared without a trace. Hired by her hotheaded husband and her rummy "uncle," Lew Archer sniffs around Malibu and finds the stink of blackmail, blood-money, and murder on every pricey silk shirt. Beset by dirty cops, a bumptious boxer turned silver screen pretty boy and a Hollywood mogul with a dark past, Archer discovers the secret of a grisly murder that just won't stay hidden.Lew Archer navigates through the watery, violent world of wealth and privilege, in this electrifying story of obsession gone mad."

The Doomsters

Ross Macdonald

1958

A Lew Archer novel.

"Hired by Carl Hallman, the desperate-eyed junkie scion of an obscenely wealthy political dynasty, detective Lew Archer investigates the suspicious deaths of his parents, Senator Hallman and his wife Alicia. Arriving in the sleepy town of Purissima, Archer discovers that orange groves may be where the Hallmans made their mint, but they've has been investing heavily in political intimidation and police brutality to shore up their rancid wealth. However, after years of dastardly double-crossing and low down dirty-dealing, the family seem to be on the receiving end of a karmic death-blow. With two dead already and another consigned to the nuthouse, Archer races to crack the secret before another Hallman lands on the slab. Murder, madness and greed grace The Doomsters, where a tony facade masks the rot and corruption within."

The Galton Case

Ross Macdonald

1959

A Lew Archer novel.

"Twenty years ago, Anthony Galton vanished, along with his streetwise bride and several thousand dollars of the Galton fortune. Now his dying mother wants him found, and Lew Archer is on the case: is Anthony hiding somewhere, happy and eager not to be discovered? But what Archer finds - a headless skeleton, a clever con and a terrified blonde - reveals a game whose stakes are so high that someone is willing to kill. The Galton Case is a wonderfully devious and poetic look at poverty, greed, murder and identity."

The Ferguson Affair

Ross Macdonald

1960

"It was a long way from the million-dollar Foothill Club to Pelly Street, where grudges were settled in blood and Spanish and a stolen diamond ring landed a girl in jail. Defense lawyer Bill Gunnarson was making the trip fast. He already knew a kidnapping at the club was tied to the girl's hot rock, and he suspected that a missing Hollywood starlet was the key to a busy crime ring. But while Gunnarson made his way through a storm of deception, money, drugs, and passions, he couldn't guess how some big shots and small-timers would all end up with murder in common."

The Wycherly Woman

Ross Macdonald

1961

A Lew Archer novel.

" Phoebe Wycherly was missing two months before her wealthy father hired Archer to find her. That was plenty of time for a young girl who wanted to disappear to do so thoroughly--or for someone to make her disappear. Before he can find the Wycherly girl, Archer has to deal with the Wycherly woman, Phoebe's mother, an eerily unmaternal blonde who keeps too many residences, has too many secrets, and leaves too many corpses in her wake."

The Zebra-Striped Hearse

Ross Macdonald

1962

A Lew Archer novel.

"Strictly speaking, Lew Archer is only supposed to dig up the dirt on a rich man's suspicious soon-to-be son-in-law. But in no time at all Archer is following a trail of corpses from the citrus belt to Mazatlan. And then there is the zebra-striped hearse and its crew of beautiful, sunburned surfers, whose path seems to keep crossing the son-in-law's and Archer's in a powerful, fast-paced novel of murder on the California coast."

The Chill

Ross Macdonald

1964

A Lew Archer novel.

"Private detective Lew Archer has better things to do than take on an investigation for Alex Kincaid, a young man claiming that his new bride, Dolly, has gone missing. Snapped by a hotel photographer on the day of their wedding, the beautiful girl vanished only hours after and Alex has heard nothing since. But when Archer begins digging, he finds evidence that links Dolly to brutal murders that span two decades, and a terrible secret. In this byzantine and compelling tale, Ross Macdonald explores the darkest experiences that can bind a family together - and tear it apart."

The Far Side of the Dollar

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

1965

"In The Far Side of the Dollar, private investigator Lew Archer is looking for an unstable rich kid who has run away from an exclusive reform school--and into the arms of kidnappers. Why are his desperate parents so loath to give Archer the information he needs to find him? And why do all trails lead to a derelict Hollywood hotel where starlets and sailors once rubbed elbows with two-bit grifters--and where the present clientele includes a brand-new corpse? The result is Ross Macdonald at his most exciting, delivering 1,000-volt shocks to the nervous system while uncovering the venality and depravity at the heart of the case."

Black Money

Ross Macdonald

1966

A Lew Archer novel.

"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."

The Instant Enemy

Ross Macdonald

1968

A Lew Archer novel.

"At first glance, it's an open-and-shut missing persons case: a headstrong daughter has run off to be with her hothead juvenile delinquent boyfriend. That is until this bush-league Bonnie & Clyde kidnap Stephen Hackett, a local millionaire industrialist. Now, Archer is offered a cool 100 Gs for his safe return by his coquettish heiress mother who has her own mysterious ties to this disturbed duo. But the deeper Archer digs, the more he realizes that nothing is as it seems and everything is questionable. Is the boyfriend a psycho ex-con with murder on the brain or a damaged youngster trying to straighten out his twisted family tree? And is the daughter simply his nympho sex-kitten companion in crime or really a fragile kid, trying to block out horrific memories of bad acid and an unspeakable sex crime?"

The Goodbye Look

Ross Macdonald

1969

A Lew Archer novel.

"Lew Archer, world-weary private investigator, is hired by Larry and Irene Chalmers when they suspect that their troubled son Nick is involved in their own burglary. But when a fellow investigator - one who's been working with Nick - turns up dead, Archer soon realizes this isn't simply about some stolen loot. To help their son, Archer must uncover the truth about a kidnap years ago, and discover why the handgun from a decades-old killing apparently turns up at every new and terrible murder. In The Goodbye Look, Ross Macdonald exposes the damage families can cause one another in the name of love, lies and greed."

The Underground Man

Ross Macdonald

1971

A Lew Archer novel.

"When a chance encounter makes him a witness to the abduction of a child, private detective Lew Archer can't help but be drawn into the case, pursuing a trail that leads all too quickly to murder. While forest fires rage in the hills around Los Angeles, threatening the homes of some of the city's wealthiest families, Archer unearths a hidden history of failed marriages, runaway children, and a man's life consumed by a search for the father who abandoned him."

Sleeping Beauty

Ross Macdonald

1973

A Lew Archer novel.

"In Sleeping Beauty, Lew Archer finds himself the confidant of a wealthy, violent family with a load of trouble on their hands--including an oil spill, a missing girl, a lethal dose of Nembutal, a six-figure ransom, and a stranger afloat, face down, off a private beach. Here is Ross Macdonald's masterful tale of buried memories, the consequences of arrogance, and the anguished relations between parents and their children. Riveting, gritty, tautly written, Sleeping Beauty is crime fiction at its best."

The Blue Hammer

Ross Macdonald

1976

A Lew Archer novel.

" The desert air is hot with sex and betrayal, death and madness and only Detective Lew Archer can make sense of a killer who makes murder a work of art. Finding a purloined portrait of a leggy blonde was supposed to be an easy paycheck for Archer, but that was before the bodies began piling up. Suddenly, Archer find himself smack in the middle of a decades-long mystery of a brilliant artist who walked into the desert and simply disappeared. He left behind a bevy of muses, molls, dolls, and dames-each one scrambling for what they thought was rightfully theirs."

Lew Archer: Private Investigator

Ross Macdonald

1977

Lew Archer short stories. Includes the stories originally published in The Name is Archer in 1955 plus Midnight Blue and Sleeping Dogs.

The contents are:

• Find the Woman
• Gone Girl
• The Bearded Lady
• The Suicide
• Guilt-Edged Blonde
• The Sinister Habit
• Wild Goose Chase
• Midnight Blue
• Sleeping Dog

Strangers in Town: Three Newly Discovered Mysteries

Ross Macdonald

2001

"In an important literary discovery, Macdonald biographer, Tom Nolan, unearthed three previously unpublished private-eye stories by Ross Macdonald. Death by Water, written in 1945, features Macdonald's first detective Joe Rogers, and two novelettes from 1950 and 1955, Strangers in Town and The Angry Man, are detailed cases of Lew Archer. These 'lost' stories help the reader to understand why The New York Times also said that - classify him how you will, Ross Macdonald is one of the best American novelists now operating."

The Archer Files

The Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer Private Investigator

Ross Macdonald

2007

"No matter what cases private eye Lew Archer takes on - a burglary, a runaway, or a disappeared person - the trail always leads to tangled family secrets and murder. Widely considered the heir to Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, Archer dug up secrets and bodies in and around Los Angeles. Here, The Archer Files collects all the Lew Archer short stories ever published, along with thirteen unpublished 'case notes' and a fascinating biographical profile of Archer by Edgar Award finalist Tom Nolan. Ross Macdonald's signature staccato prose is the real star throughout this collection, which is both a perfect introduction for the newcomer and a must-have for the Macdonald aficionado."

Kenneth Millar/Ross Macdonald: A Checklist

Compiled by Matthew J. Bruccoli

Gale Research Company

1971

Dreamers Who Live Their Dreams: The World of Ross Macdonald's Novels

Peter Wolfe

1976

Ross Macdonald

Jerry Speir

1978

Which Way Did He Go? The Private Eye in Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Chester Himes and Ross MacDonald

Edward Margolies

1981

Ross Macdonald/Kenneth Millar: A Descriptive Bibliography

Matthew J. Bruccoli

University of Pittsburgh Press

1983

Ross Macdonald

Matthew J. Bruccoli

1984

Inward Journey: Ross Macdonald

Editor: Ralph B. Sipper

1984

Published by Mysterious Press in 1987 with the subtitle: Reflections on Ross Macdonald by 25 of America's most distinguished authors."

Includes two previously unpublished essays by Ross Macdonald and pieces about Macdonald by pieces on MacDonald by a wide range of authors including Margaret Millar, Julian Symons, Otto Penzler, Matthew J. Bruccoli, Richard Layman, Robert B. Parker, Eudora Welty, Collin Wilcox, Reynolds Price, Margaret Millar, Diane Wakoski, and Thomas Berger.

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The Hard-Boiled Explicator: A Guide to the Study of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald

Robert E. SKinner

1985

"During the past thirty years, that uniquely American artform known as the hard-boiled mystery novel has come under increasing scrutiny by critics, scholars, and students alike. Literally hundreds of articles and books have been devoted to the subject, particularly to its three major practitioners, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald. Now, for the first time, those interested in this field have available to them a carefully constructed guide to the wealth of information on this subject. The Hard-Boiled Explicator will be of immense value to librarians, scholars, students, and mystery oficionados."

Ross Macdonald: A Biography

Tom Nolan

Scribner

1999

"Now, in the first full-length biography of this extraordinary and influential writer, a much fuller picture emerges of a man to whom hiding things came as second nature. While it was no secret that Ross Macdonald was the pseudonym of Kenneth Millar -- a Santa Barbara man married to another good mystery writer, Margaret Millar -- his official biography was spare. Drawing on unrestricted access to the Kenneth and Margaret Millar Archives, on more than forty years of correspondence, and on hundreds of interviews with those who knew Millar well, author Tom Nolan has done a masterful job of filling in the blanks between the psychologically complex novels and the author's life -- both secret and overt."

A Ross MacDonald Companion

Robert L. Gale

2000

"This reference is a convenient guide to his life and works. Included are numerous alphabetically arranged entries for individual works, characters, family members, and professional acquaintances. Entries for novels provide plot summaries, lists of characters, and brief critical commentaries. Longer entries cite works for further reading, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography. Entries are cross-referenced, and the book includes a chronology and detailed index."

Hardboiled Mystery Writers: Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammett, Ross Macdonald: A Literary Reference

Editor: Matthew J. Bruccoli and Richard Layman

2002

"An illustrated guide to the mystery genre's hardest hitting writers focuses on the three men who created a uniquely American brand of detective fiction - Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Ross Macdonald, the creators of such famed fictional private detectives as Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, and Lew Archer."

Meanwhile There Are Letters: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald

Edited and with an introduction by Suzanne Marrs & Tom Nolan

2015

"In 1970, Ross Macdonald wrote a letter to Eudora Welty, beginning a thirteen-year correspondence between fellow writers and kindred spirits. Though separated by background, geography, genre, and his marriage, the two authors shared their lives in witty, wry, tender, and at times profoundly romantic letters, each drawing on the other for inspiration, comfort, and strength. They brought their literary talents to bear on a wide range of topics, discussing each others' publications, the process of translating life into fiction, the nature of the writer’s block each encountered, books they were reading, and friends and colleagues they cherished. They also discussed the world around them, the Vietnam War, the Nixon, Carter, and Reagan presidencies, and the environmental threats facing the nation. The letters reveal the impact each had on the other’s work, and they show the personal support Welty provided when Alzheimer’s destroyed Macdonald’s ability to communicate and write."

It's All One Case: The Illustrated Ross Macdonald Archives

Paul Nelson & Kevin Avery with Jeff Wong

Fantagraphics Books

2016

"In 1976, critic Paul Nelson spent several weeks interviewing legendary detective writer Ross Macdonald, who elevated the form to a new literary level. 'We talked about everything imaginable,' Nelson wrote 'including Macdonald's often meager beginnings; his dual citizenship; writers, painters, music, and movies he admired; The Great Gatsby, his favorite book; how he used symbolism to change detective writing; and more.' This book, published in a handsome, oversized format, collects these unpublished interviews and is a visual history of Macdonald's professional career. It is illustrated with rare and select items from one of the world's largest private archives of Macdonald ephemera; reproduces, in full color, the covers of the various editions of Macdonald's more than two dozen books; collects facsimile reproductions of select pages from his manuscripts, as well as magazine spreads; and presents rare photos, many never before seen."