Sleeping Beauty

By Ross Macdonald

In Sleeping Beauty, Lew Archer finds himself the confidant of a
wealthy, violent family with a load of trouble on their hands--including an oil spill, a missing girl, a lethal dose of Nembutal, a six-figure ransom, and a stranger afloat, face down, off a private beach. Here is Ross Macdonald's masterful tale of buried memories, the consequences of arrogance, and the anguished relations between parents and their children. Riveting, gritty, tautly written, Sleeping Beauty is crime fiction at its best.

If any writer can be said to have inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, it is Ross Macdonald. Between the late 1940s and his death in 1983, he gave the American crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity that his pre-decessors had only hinted at. And in the character of Lew Archer, Macdonald redefined the private eye as a roving conscience who walks the treacherous frontier between criminal guilt and human sin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Dec 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9780307772633

Ross Macdonald

Ross MacDonald is an illustrator whose work has appeared in international publications. He lives in Connecticut.

Reviews for Sleeping Beauty

[jerhogan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this as an old classic detective story (1973). Lots of incidents as the detective solves the case. Interesting take on the environment - oil spill decried while they all drive around! That aside although it was hard to keep track of all the characters it was quite enjoyable and any differences from today's crime fiction could be put down to his virtually being in at the beginning of the genre (For instance the book ends quite abruptly).

[phillipfrey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is my 4th Ross MacDonald read in a row. I've been having a good time with his Lew Archer PI. This one was published in 1973 and has a news-worthy contemporary feel. That's because the patriarch of the troubled family is the head of a California oil company, a company that has had an oil spill off the coast. With this as the backdrop, his daughter gets kidnapped, or does she? Lew Archer will try to find her, while the case mushrooms into three murders.

[jrtanworth · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ross Macdonald in top form. Somehow I missed this one when I read most of the Lew Archer series 30 years ago. This is a classic of dysfunctional families, long-buried secrets, unexplained deaths, and dogged detective work by Archer. Interestingly, it takes place in the context of a major oil spill on the west coast due to a rupture at a drilling rig owned by the key family in the story. In the year of the BP sill, this makes especially interesting reading.

[idiotgirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

perfect at what it is. good fun. audio book.