Ross MacDonald wrote only a few short stories during his lifetime featuring his hardboiled PI, Lew Archer. In comparison to the other members of the so-called “holy trinity” of American detective fiction, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, his output of short fiction was meager indeed. By his own admission, MacDonald felt constrained by the short story form. It was only on the broader tableau of the novel that he believed he could explore the issues and themes that most fascinated him. Nevertheless, seven of his stories were collected and published together in the 1954 volume, The Name is Archer. Only five of those tales were originally Archer stories. Written initially as vehicles for two of MacDonald’s other detective creations, “Find the Woman” and “The Bearded Lady” were rewritten as Archer stories expressly for the 1954 book.

The 1977 collection, Lew Archer: Private Investigator, includes all of the stories contained in The Name is Archer as well as two additional stories that were published subsequent to 1954. Sadly, Lew Archer: Private Investigator is currently out of print. These nine stories are, however, vintage MacDonald and one can only hope that perhaps Random House will see fit to reissue the collection as one of the titles in its splendid Vintage Crime/Black Lizard editions of MacDonald’s work. Until then, those wishing to read these fine stories must seek the collection on the used market.

Written over a span of nineteen years – from 1946 to 1965 – the stories in Lew Archer: Private Investigator vary greatly in overall quality. Nevertheless, from first to last these tales all foreshadow in an entertaining way the style and elements that would come to distinguish the author’s more mature and longer work. In “Find the Woman” a publicity director for a Hollywood studio, Millicent Dreen, hires Archer to quietly find her daughter who has gone missing. When it becomes apparent that the young woman may have drowned, Archer begins to suspect that either the girl’s husband who has recently returned home from the service or even her own mother may be involved in what looks less and less like an accident. Despite its somewhat improbable denouement, “Find the Woman” offers a probing look at the jealousy, decadence and superficiality that characterizes life (and death!) in Tinseltown. (Interestingly, the original title of this story was “Death by Air.” As such it was written as a companion piece to another story, “Death by Water.” That latter tale received its first publication in Crippen and Landru’s Strangers in Town: Three Newly Discovered Stories by Ross MacDonald published in February 2001.

A number of the stories in this collection are also significant in that they can be said to approach, or perhaps even to match, the complexity and psychological depth of the best of MacDonald’s longer fiction. As Archer investigates the death of an artist friend in “The Bearded Lady” he uncovers a bizarre love triangle with Freudian overtones involving his deceased buddy, the dead man’s fiancée and the girl’s stepmother. In “The Guilt-Edged Blonde,” Archer is hired to protect an ex-mobster from his old friends who have recently caught up with him. What starts out as a straightforward bodyguard job turns into a violent and twisted family saga that hurtles inexorably forward like something out of Greek tragedy. The sins of the past begin to taint the present in “Sleeping Dog.” Against his better judgement Archer agrees to investigate the disappearance of an attractive acquaintance’s dog. The detective quickly discovers that the key to the case is a twenty-year old murder. Before all is said and done, however, the characters in this intriguing drama learn too late that, try as they might, it’s impossible to let some sleeping dogs lay! (“Sleeping Dog” was commissioned by Sports Illustrated magazine. The magazine’s editors, however, rejected the story because they deemed that it did not present a solid “sporting” connection. Miffed, MacDonald eventually sold the story to Argosy instead).

While MacDonald is best known for his critically acclaimed novels, the author’s short fiction (what relatively little that there is of it) is also absorbing and worthwhile fare. As the most comprehensive collection of his short stories, therefore, Lew Archer: Private Investigator belongs on the bookshelf … and in the hands … of every fan of hardboiled detective fiction.