The Ivory Grin

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Summary: An Intriguing Early Mystery by MacDonald
Review: Published in 1952, THE IVORY GRIN is one of Ross MacDonald's grittiest and most violent novels. While his later works are known for their psychological depth and moral complexity, this title is as hardboiled as they come. It is not that those other elements - which have come to distinguish his mature work from more run-of-the-mill crime fiction - are missing here. Rather, THE IVORY GRIN has an edge to it that has been refined out of novels such THE CHILL, THE FAR SIDE OF THE DOLLAR, THE UNDERGROUND MAN and THE GOODBYE LOOK.

The novel opens as PI Lew Archer is hired by the hard-as-nails Una Larkin to tail her former employee, a young African-American woman named Lucy Champion. The detective locates Champion in Bella City but, before long, she winds up in a cheap roadside motel with her throat cut. With typical doggedness, Archer becomes determined to get to the bottom of Lucy's murder and to discover the real reason for his erstwhile client's continued interest in Champion. As the case unfolds, he uncovers a connection between the murdered woman, a sleazy small-town physician, a missing playboy, a deranged mobster on the lam from Detroit and a blonde bombshell who uses and discards men the way most people with a cold go through Kleenex.

The action in THE IVORY GRIN is, at times, fast and furious, and some of the scenes are as bizarre and macabre as you are likely to find anywhere. (The title of the novel is taken from one particularly gruesome scene at the end of the story). Nevertheless, MacDonald's main focus is, as usual, on probing the motivations of his characters, on bringing to light the greed, the loneliness, the insecurity and the despair that impels people to act they way they do. While this book cannot perhaps be considered one of MacDonald's major works, it remains one of his most visceral and, in many ways, one of his most engaging. Those familiar with the more dispassionate Archer from the author's later novels will no doubt be surprised (and, hopefully, intrigued) by the emotional intensity of this story.

Hardcore MacDonald fans might also be interested to learn that THE IVORY GRIN was conceived initially as a short story. Before submitting the work for publication, however, MacDonald decided that the story deserved novel-length treatment. That original story, entitled "Strangers in Town," received its first publication (February 2001) in STRANGERS IN TOWN: THREE NEWLY DISCOVERED MYSTERIES BY ROSS MACDONALD. (James Clar - MYSTERY NEWS)


Rating:
Summary: ross grins again
Review: the cynical private eye is at his usual get-under-your-skin and you wonder what makes lew archer the most intriguing yet lovable character of mystery books