Harper

I had never read any of the Lew Archer detective novels by Ross MacDonald before finding an old paperback copy of The Moving Target [1949] at a library book sale this spring. I am generally suspicious of modern detective novels - all the most popular mystery novelists crank out so many books, flooding so many airport terminals, I struggle to believe in any quality could be found there. MacDonald published 18 Lew Archer novels over 26 years, so hardly a trim bibliography like Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, but this book was the first in the series, and it's from 1949, so I was hopeful for some authentic postwar California color.

The book is quite good: what happens when a millionaire oil tycoon drinks his way through the seedy underbelly of L.A.? Kidnapping and murder. 

Paul Newman's movie is quite good too, with a straightforward faithful adaptation by William Goldman (Butch Cassidy, The Princess Bride). The action is moved to the present-day (1966), but the pre-Summer Of Love vibe actually improves the story. I would love to know the motivation behind the only major addition not present in the source novel: Harper's soon-to-be ex wife Susan, played by Janet Leigh. The detective is already divorced in the book; in the movie, Leigh gets three meaty scenes.

I also enjoyed Lauren Bacall as the oil tycoon's wife, paralyzed from the waist down: casting Bacall is a callback/parallel to General Sternwood in The Big Sleep, Bacall's late husband's movie.