Archives: Ross Macdonald

The first real-life private eye; Neil Sheehan; more crimes against English; newsletter, Jan. 26, 2018

January 29, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: newsletter.

This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email (4,302) list on Friday, January 26, 2018. Hi, Unseasonably warm weather in East Tennessee last weekend allowed us to check on the beehives, and I am happy to report that both of my hives have bees! This is good news. The biggest challenge a beekeeper has • Read More »

Tags: A Bright and Shining Lie, American Public Media, crimes against English, Dashiell Hammett, Edgar Allan Poe, Eugene Francois Vidocq, In the Dark, John Donne, Madeleine Baran, Murders at the Rue Morgue, Neil Sheehan, New York Times, paintings, Raymond Chandler, redundancies, redundancy, Robert Parker, Ross Macdonald, sketch artists, Sue Grafton, true crime, true crime podcasts, UMCOR, watercolor

The ‘private eye’ in literature begins with the real-life character of Eugene Francois Vidocq

January 25, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: fiction, history, journalism, Private eye, writing.

The place to look for the origins of the literary private eye is in 19th century France with the character of Eugene Francois Vidocq.

Tags: ballistics, crime-scene investigation, criminal identification, criminal investigative unit, Dashiell Hammett, Edgar Allan Poe, Eugene Francois Vidocq, finger-printing, Kinsey Millhone, Lew Archer, Mike Ashley, Murders at the Rue Morgue, Phillip Marlowe, private detective, private eye, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Sam Spade, Strand Magazine, Sue Grafton

Readers track down more crimes against English; Ross Macdonald; newsletter, Jan. 19, 2018

January 22, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: newsletter.

This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (4,379) on Friday, Jan. 19, 2018. Hi, Winter has settled in in a big way in my part of the world. Plenty of time for indoor activities, the most important of which is reading. But that’s not the only one. Some writing and some painting • Read More »

Tags: caricatures, Charles McGrath, crimes against English, Dashiell Hammett, Dirty John, Lew Archer, Lincoln-Douglas debates, New York Times, Philip Roth, Phillip Marlowe, podcasts, private detective, private eye, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Sam Spade, The Plot Against America, true crime podcasts, verbs, watercolor, writing life

Ross Macdonald takes hard-boiled fiction to new levels of style and plot

January 18, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: fiction, journalism, Private eye, writers, writing.

Just when the reading world thought that the hard-boiled detective novel had reached its zenith with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, along comes Ross Macdonald. The similarities among the lives of Hammett, Chandler, and Macdonald (whose real name was Kenneth Millar) are striking and significant: All had difficult and disruptive childhoods. Each, for a time, • Read More »

Tags: A is for Alibi, Dashiell Hammett, Detnovel.com, Eudora Welty, Kinsey Millhone, Lew Archer, Phillip Marlow, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Sam Space, Sue Grafton, The Chill, The Moving Target, The Underground Man, Tom Nolan, William Marling

G is for Grafton: Mystery writer Sue Grafton succumbs to cancer at age 77

January 2, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, journalism, Private eye, writers, writing.

Sue Grafton’s private eye, Kinsey Millhone, has taken her place beside Hammett’s Sam Spade, Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe, and Macdonald’s Lew Archer.

Tags: A is for Alibi, Dashiell Hammett, H is for Homicide, Kinsey Millhone, Lew Archer, P is for Peril, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Sue Grafton, SueGrafton.com, Y is for Yesterday, Z is for Zero