Home | Authors | Characters Crime Fiction ABC: Authors, Books and Characters About | Links | Contact

On this page

Lew Archer

This page lists novels and short story collections that feature the private investigator Lew Archer.

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.

 

Lew Archer: Novels and short story collections

The Moving Target

John Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Drowning Pool

John Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Way Some People Die

John Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Ivory Grin

John Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


Find a Victim

John Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Name is Archer

John Ross Macdonald

Bantam Books

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
Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Barbarous Coast

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Doomsters

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Galton Case

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Wycherly Woman

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Zebra-Striped Hearse

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Chill

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Far Side of the Dollar

Ross Macdonald

A Lew Archer novel.

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


Black Money

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Instant Enemy

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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?"
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Goodbye Look

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Underground Man

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


Sleeping Beauty

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Blue Hammer

Ross Macdonald

Knopf

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


Lew Archer: Private Investigator

Ross Macdonald

The Mysterious Press

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
cover

Strangers in Town: Three Newly Discovered Mysteries

Ross Macdonald

Crippen & Landru

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."
Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover


The Archer Files

The Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer Private Investigator

Ross Macdonald

Crippen & Landru

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."
cover

Buy from amazon.co.uk

cover



Last updated February 2018