Blue City

by Ross Macdonald

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553225901
• ISBN13: 9780553225907
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent MacDonald before Archer..Near Flawless!

This is a super hard-boiled yarn about a 22 year old very recent WW2 Vet, who finally comes back to his home town, only to learn his Father has been murdered, and the town seems drenched in corruption, and worse. If it seems that our hero is too tough at times, remember he was there at the Malmedy massacre, and lived to tell it. We meet some unique characters, including a really rough bunch who appear to have taken over the city, a world-weary junk dealer with pictures of Engels in his outside window (no one will recognize this one), and Marx inside ( no one will see this one, but those who do easily recognize him!), cops of all shades, some decent call-girls, and an inscrutable mayor who wants some change in the city, hopefully for the better. The action seems to occur in 24 hours, and there are several murders, lots of tough talk, and a culprit not all that difficult to figure out. Also, the family background is much less important here than in the later Archer novels. But for a 1947 hard-boiled mystery, this one is pretty darn good!

Excellent pre-Lew Archer standalone

Wikipedia cites Blue City was made into a film in 1986, starring Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and David Caruso, three years after RM died. BC's plot in a nutshell finds John Weather returning home from the army to find his father, J.D. Weather, was shot and killed two years before. The rest of the book centers on John digging into his father's unsolved murder and exposing the seedy, corrupt town. Besides the novel's hardboiled tone, I was struck by the Chandleresque metaphors RM used. My guess is that in 1947 the device was still fresh and interesting in crime fiction. It's a fun, h-b read written before the author started the long Lew Archer series.

Hardboiled noir masterpiece

Ross Macdonald is best known for his novels starring Lew Archer, a private eye in the Philip Marlowe mould, who plies his trade amongst the idle rich in sun-drenched southern California. However, before the advent of Archer, Macdonald wrote four earlier tales of a wholly different nature, under his real name of Kenneth Millar, and this is one of them. BLUE CITY was first published in 1947 and has been out of print for some time. Its reappearance now should cause many to reconsider the work of Ross Macdonald, for what we have here is a tough chunk of NOIR writing set in the mean streets of an unspecified mid-Western city. The hero has returned from the war in Europe to his home town to learn that his father has been killed. His search for the murderers leads him into the dark world of sleazy night-clubs, hookers, dealers, and corrupt police and politicians. The picture of depravity the author paints could almost form a backdrop for the later work of David Goodis, and the contrast with the radiant scenery of the Archer novels couldn't be greater. With sparkling post-Chandler dialogue and strikingly descriptive brush-strokes, Macdonald has produced a fast-moving hardboiled NOIR masterpiece which by far outshines most other crime novels of the period. The publishers deserve praise for resurrecting this forgotten classic, which is unreservedly recommended.

Reminiscent of Dashiell Hammett rather than Lew Archer

This book is reminiscent of Dashiell's Hammett novels such as "Red Harvest" or "The Dain Curse." Adjectives such as "hard-boiled" apply to the hero as well as the villains. The hero in Blue City (like Hammett's Continental Op) accomplish the impossible because they have crossed over the line at times into murder. Yet somehow the hero is not corrupted even while living in the middle of corruption. The style is choppy and the action is jumpy. It makes one wish for smoother connections between scenes. The book is almost too abbreviated. The characters are not developed beyond what is needed for the plot line. As a result, everyone seems hard-nosed, cold-blooded and lacking in humanity.

Great noir behind a misleading title

The cover of this book contains an inexcusable misprint. Blue City is not a Lew Archer novel. Archer, of course was Ross MacDonald's series character: a hardboiled private eye and first person narrator who revealed much more of his psyche than is typical in the genre. If any Archer fan were to resist returning the book after the disappointing discovery which takes place by reading the first three pages, there is a real treat in store. The twenty two year old hero is refreshing, narrating away with a perception and cultural awareness that is way beyond his years. The novel is great noir with intriguing characters and a well-thought-out story line. Like Hammett, MacDonald painted the seamy, corrupted side of life. Heroes could be tough, brutal, terribly antisocial and very persistent in their quest to right wrongs. Perhaps this is what gave the hardboiled genre such staying power. In today's world, reading this stuff can be almost therapeutic. There were only a handful of basic plots in this type of writing. Don't look for anything new. The delight is in the brush stokes. Very delightful indeed.