Strangers in Town: Three Newly Discovered Stories [Hardcover]

It has been 17 years since I last read a new Ross MacDonald book. Boy, was it great to get back to a real master. Even the Introduction was informative and well written. The three stories in this book are typical Ross MacDonald short stories in that they are like short versions of his books. It was worth the wait.

Being a southern California-based mystery writer who has read everything Ross Macdonald wrote several times over, I was thrilled when I first heard about Tom Nolan's new effort. Nolan's last book was the authoritative biography of Ross Macdonald, creatively entitled ROSS MACDONALD: A BIOGRAPHY. It won last year's Macavity Award, and it should have swept the other awards.

STRANGERS IN TOWN is Nolan's remarkable follow-up to that magnificent biography. It features three previously unpublished Macdonald short stories. The stories cast new light on Macdonald, his writings, and the development of his unique talent. Being well-versed in Macdonld's works made it possible for me to spot numerous parallels between the short stories and Macdonald's Lew Archer books.

While I enjoyed reading fresh works by the man I consider the greatest mystery author of all time, my favorite parts of the book were Nolan's lengthy and perceptive introduction to the collection as well as his shorter yet insightful introductions to each story.

STRANGERS IN TOWN is among the best books I have read this year. It provided me with the final inspiration I needed to finish my second mystery novel. Thank you, Tom Nolan.

Preferring to work on the more expansive canvas provided by the novel form, Ross MacDonald wrote a mere nine stories during his lifetime featuring his seminal creation the hardboiled private investigator, Lew Archer. The publication of STRANGERS IN TOWN, which consists of three hitherto unavailable mysteries, thus represents a literary event of some importance. This volume also contains a meaty and informative introduction by Tom Nolan, MacDonald's biographer, as well as a separate preface (also by Nolan) to each story.

The title story, "Strangers in Town," is a Lew Archer novelette written in 1950. The piece was never published as MacDonald decided that its basic plot outline could be better utilized as the framework for a novel. Many readers will no doubt recognize here the skeleton of what was to become the 1952 novel, The Ivory Grin. The story begins as Archer is hired by an African-American woman. Her son has been accused, wrongfully she believes, of murdering the family's female boarder. Archer discovers that the victim, the vivacious Lucy Deschamp, is a young lady with a "past." That knowledge places the detective on the wrong side of the mob. The author's social awareness takes center stage in this tale. From his African-American client and the family's Latino lawyer to the shady local doctor and the wealthy syndicate enforcer, the interaction between these individuals from such diverse social, ethnic and economic backgrounds makes for some compelling and provocative reading - all the more so in a genre short story! The seeds of the author's more mature work have clearly been sown here.

Despite their eccentricities, the stories in this compilation all hold up well in their own right and are worthy additions to the MacDonald canon. The real value of these tales, however, is that they foreshadow and place into bold relief the eventual accomplishments of one of the mystery field's true innovators. In ways sometimes dim and inchoate, they offer a gratifying glimpse of the creative process that ultimately gave birth to what the New York Times was to call "the finest detective stories ever written by an American." (The full text of this review was first published in MYSTERY NEWS, April/May 2001).