Macdonald, Ross -- The Goodbye Look (1969)

In The Goodbye Look, the first Ross Macdonald bestseller, Archer is called in by the usual mega-rich clients to investigate the theft of a gold box.  There's the a mentally-troubled college-age son in the picture, not altogether surprisingly.  It's very similar to other books Macdonald had published for the last ten years, with a plot with roots buried deep in the past, with numerous questions of parentage and identity.  One needs a chart to keep track of all the relationships and falsifications.  In the end, it's not a bad plot (though not altogether logically convincing, in my view); but I was never interested enough in the characters or situations to be gripped by its complexity.  Archer has a sex scene which William Goldman in his famous review seemed to think was hot stuff, but it's almost blushingly restrained by today's standards (or for that matter by then-contemporary hardboiled's).  I still marvel at (and respect) Macdonald's restraint in the employment of violence, sex and scatology in his books.

Curt Evans