Find a Victim - Ross Macdonald

Written by Ross Macdonald
Read by Tom Parker
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Lew Archer Series, Book 5
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Release date: December 3, 2007
Duration: 06:07:18

A hitchhiker stumbles to his knees on the side of a dark road. Private detective Lew Archer stops his car. When he gets to the young man, Archer realizes that he has stumbled into a mess—for the hitchhiker is dying of a gunshot wound.

In a matter of hours, Archer is suspected by the law, hired by a target shooting trucking magnate, and propositioned by an adulterer’s wife. 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 diaries, prodigal daughters and abused wives, and a band of sinners on the loose in the hills all make the little town of Las Cruces seem a lot more interesting than noted in the guide book. As the murder rate rises, Archer finds himself caught up in a mystery in which everyone is a suspect and everyone a victim.

The complex plot of FIND A VICTIM unravels from narrator-hero Lew Archer’s investigation into the shooting death of a hitchhiker. Archer exposes a California town mired in corruption. Weakened at times by clichéd dialogue, the book nonetheless finishes strongly with revelations rich in action and ideas….an appreciation of Macdonald’s poetic metaphors (”Some random stars began to nail up the edges of the evening…”), and his favorite theme of family guilt. Though not the best of the Archer books, this novel is served well by effective reading.

If it seems that Tom Parker and Grover Gardner sound alike it is because they are the same person. Not unusual for a narrator to use a different name for a different publisher.