The Galton Case - Ross Macdonald

Written by Ross Macdonald
Read by Grover Gardner
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Lew Archer Series, Book 8
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Release date: June 16, 2010
Duration: 06:45:19

In the character of Lew Archer, Ross Macdonald redefined the private eye as a roving conscience who walks the treacherous frontier between criminal guilt and human sin—and in so doing, gave the American crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity that his predecessors had only hinted at. Deliciously devious and tersely poetic, The Galton Case displays Ross Macdonald at the pinnacle of his form.

Almost twenty years have passed since Anthony Galton disappeared, along with a suspiciously streetwise bride and several thousand dollars of his family’s fortune. Now Anthony’s aging and very rich mother wants him back and has hired Lew Archer to find him. What turns up is a headless skeleton, a boy who claims to be Galton’s son, and a con game whose stakes are so high that someone is still willing to kill for them.

The character claiming to be the long-lost heir to the Galton fortune may be an actor, but he’s not in the same league with Grover Gardner; on the evidence here, few are. P.I. Lew Archer discovers that while “John Galton” claims to have been raised in an orphanage in Ohio, he actually grew up in Canada. But listeners can make the same discovery from the very subtly Canadian way he pronounces the word “about.” Even more fun, the fancy lawyer who hires Archer to find “Galton” speaks with the exact stagy faux-English accent that the likes of William Powell used in forties films noir; you can absolutely see his big-shouldered 1949 suit and his pencil mustache. Macdonald is at his best here; Gardner is even better. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine