What's in a name? A hell of a lot if you were to ask hard boiled crime writer Ross Macdonald, whose birth name was Kenneth Millar. His wife Margaret Millar was a highly successful mystery writer and to avoid confusion with her, he decided not to use that name for his books. He started writing under the name John Macdonald, but that was to easily confused with another renowned crime writer, John D MacDonald, so he tried John Ross Macdonald and then settled on Ross Macdonald.
Under the Ross Macdonald moniker he wrote dozens of mystery books, many of them featuring his private eye protagonist, Lew Archer, who was a more kind and reflective version of Phillip Marlowe. The last Lew Archer book appeared in 1976.
Macdonald's Lew Archer books were notable for their complex plots and intricate descriptions of the intrigues of dysfunctional families. Macdonald's father abandoned his family when Ross was very young and this was a likely source for his fascination with this theme.
The Doomsters, a Macdonald novel from 1958, is considered a turning point in the Lew Archer series. Here, the corruption and pain of a blighted family are on at once compassionate and voyeuristic display. Lew Archer's sympathetic side is often evident and fans of Macdonald have noted that it was in this novel that Macdonald found his own voice and style and relied less on imitations of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, his two main hardboiled writing influences.
The title comes from a Thomas Hardy poem and refers to demons and unresolved conflicts and pains that haunt and eventually destroy someone.
The novel begins with Lew Archer awakening one morning to find a stranger knocking at his front door. It turns out the stranger is Carl Hallman, the tormented son of a wealthy and powerful political family. Carl is on the run from a mental hospital and a fellow patient, Tom Rica, had given him Archer's name as someone to contact for help.
Carl had been sent to the hospital after a nervous breakdown following his father's death. He had had an argument with his father - who was a Senator and who had made his fortune from orange groves on land he owned - over the treatment of the Japanese laborers who worked in his orange groves. The father died after the argument and Carl assumed he had at least indirectly caused his father's death.
Once in the hospital, Carl became convinced that his despised brother Jerry was scheming to kill him, or at least keep him permanently in the hospital. He shared his fear with Rica and then he staged his escape.
Carl's story moves Archer and hits him in a sore spot: Tom Rica was a drug addicted tough kid that Archer had tried to set straight and failed.
Archer tries to drive Carl back to the hospital, but along the way, they get into an argument. Carl punches Archer in the jaw, knocks him out,leaves him unconscious in the ditch and makes off with his car.
Archer comes to and goes to the hospital to let the doctors there know that Carl is on the loose. A manhunt, led by a hardassed local sheriff in the pay of the Hallman family and who loathes Carl, ensues while Archer makes his way to the Hallman estate and starts to find many family skeletons - literally and figuratively - in dusty closets long locked.
The Doomsters is a powerful and elegantly written book but I find that Macdonald, like his hero Chandler, has a fondness for the overly convoluted plot. No matter. There is some fine noir atmosphere and hardboiled writing that more than make up for that.
What better exposition of the hardboiled view of life could there be than this:
The trouble with you, I said to myself: you're always turning over the postcards and reading the messages on the underside. Written in invisible ink, in blood, in tears, with a black border around them, with postage due, unsigned, or signed with a thumbprint.
Nothing ever is as it appears to be in the world of hardboiled fiction and The Doomsters is a compelling and fascinating example of this. Well worth reading.
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