Ross Macdonald

Ross Macdonald, Sir John A. Macdonald or John Ross Macdonald ( born June 2, 1915 as Kenneth Millar in Los Gatos, California, † July 11, 1983 in Santa Barbara, California ) was an American writer and lecturer.

Life

After he originally John Macdonald had called, he changed his pseudonym Ross Macdonald, in order to avoid confusion with the same crime writer John D. MacDonald. Ross MacDonald was married to the novelist Margaret Millar.

The central theme of detective novels Macdonalds are reprobates young people and blame their parents. Most novels Macdonalds include branching, reaching far back into the past criminal involvement, the private detective Lew Archer be resolved by. Macdonald led thus one of the first crime writers of the genus to the ideas of psychoanalysis.

In addition to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler Ross Macdonald is one of the most important representatives of the hard school of the detective novel. James Ellroy calls him as one of his role models.

Two Lew Archer novels have been made ​​into a film starring Paul Newman as a detective ( Harper, 1966, The Drowning Pool, 1975); However, the investigators say in the movies, for legal reasons Harper Archer instead.

Ross Macdonald died in 1983 from Alzheimer 's disease.

Works

The crime novels were published in 1968 in German from Random House and by Diogenes.

Lew Archer novels without

Lew Archer novels

Narrative volumes

Non-fiction

Films

There was also a mini TV series with six episodes ( Archer, 1975) with Brian Keith in the title role.