Mystery Book # 91 - The Chill by Ross Macdonald

The Chill is the eleventh book in the Lew Archer mystery series... but having not read the previous ten books in the series wasn't a problem since Lew Archer is the stereotypical private detective in the mold of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. Macdonald's pulpy noir style isn't as sublimely ridiculous as Chandler's but it is still effective. The main thing here is a tightly constructed mystery where everything fits together perfectly in the end.

At the start it seems like this will be a missing persons case as Archer is hired to find a runaway bride. But within a few chapters the woman is found quite easily thanks to extremely knowledgeable witnesses... then there's a murder which may or may not have been committed by the woman.  Archer is on the case and we're introduced to quite a few suspects and a whole conspiracy involving previous deaths. In the second to last chapter it all starts coming together as the connections between all the characters are finally revealed. It is almost too much information to keep straight since there are so many characters here... but then on the third to last page the final huge detail is revealed and everything clicks in place beautifully as the last piece of the puzzle is put in place.

It may not be great literature and in time I'll probably have forgotten about most it, but I was entertained and the final reveal of the killer was quite shocking yet made perfect sense. A-