The Moving Target

"The Archer books, over three decades, move gradually away from the hard-boiled model associated with Chandler into a more personal approach, often marked by an interest in the California land- and seascape and in the unraveling of society. With their runaway children, idle rich, recreational drug use, rampant divorce and deepening generation gap, the novels seem to track the beginnings of contemporary Southern California.
"'Once he found his own prose style,' said Nolan, 'which was very poetic and elegant and precise, he wrote novels which would never be mistaken for a Chandler or a Hammett book. He moved away from the emphasis on criminals and gangsters to looking at the tragedy and pathos of family life. His approach was more like Ibsen, who blamed everybody: There was enough guilt in his books to go around.'"

In the Los Angeles Times, Scott Timberg celebrates the reprinting of Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer novels.