The Moving Target

The Moving Target is a 1949 mystery novel by American writer Ross Macdonald, who at this point used the name "John Macdonald".

The Moving Target
First edition
AuthorRoss Macdonald
Cover artistBill English
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesLew Archer
GenreMystery
PublisherKnopf
Publication date
1949
Media typePrint (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages245
Followed byThe Drowning Pool 

This is the first Ross Macdonald novel to feature the character of Lew Archer, who would define the author's career. Lew Archer is hired by the dispassionate wife of an eccentric oil tycoon who has gone missing. Archer must dig through a strange cast of Los Angeles characters, finding crime after crime before he can get to the job he was hired to do.

The novel became the basis for the 1966 Paul Newman film Harper, thanks in no small part to screenwriter William Goldman.[1]

Ross Macdonald (Kenneth Millar) originally titled this book The Snatch. When the book was published, he chose the pseudonym John Macdonald after his father, John Macdonald Millar. It is believed he didn't want to use his own name as his wife, Margaret Millar, was already an established writer. Due this pen-name's similarity with the name of the writer John D. MacDonald, Millar later wrote as John Ross Macdonald and finally as Ross Macdonald.

Santa Teresa

In this book, Macdonald created the fictional city of Santa Teresa, a version of Santa Barbara, California.[2] In the 1980s, Santa Teresa became home to Kinsey Millhone, a fictional female private investigator created by Sue Grafton.[3] Millhone is the protagonist of Grafton's "alphabet mysteries" series of novels.[4][5] Grafton chose the setting as a tribute to Macdonald.[6]

Notes
  1. Goldman, William (1983). Adventures in the Screen Trade. Warner Books. pp. 177–179. ISBN 0-446-51273-7.
  2. Priestman, Martin (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Cambridge University Press.
  3. Everett, Todd (1991-05-23). "Mystery Town: Whodunit author Sue Grafton lives in Santa Barbara and sets her tales in Santa Teresa". Los Angeles Times. p. J15.
  4. Hawkes, Ellen (1990-02-18). "G IS FOR GRAFTON Instead of Killing Her Ex-Husband, Sue Grafton Created a Smart-Mouthed, Hard-Boiled (and Incidentally Female) Detective Named Kinsey Millhone". Los Angeles Times Magazine. p. 20.
  5. Natalie Hevener Kaufman, Carol McGinnis Kay (1997). "G" Is for Grafton: The World of Kinsey Millhone (Hardcover ed.). Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-5446-4.
  6. Nolan, Tom. "Ross Macdonald". BookSense. Archived from the original on 2008-05-18. Retrieved 2008-06-01.


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