ROSS MACDONALD – Sleeping Beauty. Lew Archer #17 (of 18). Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, March 1973. Bantam, paperback; 1st printing thus, May 1974. Reprinted many times since.

   One of the later books in the series, and to my mind, not one of the better ones. Archer meets a young woman against a backdrop of a huge oil slick off the southern California coast. She is married but distraught, not only because of the disaster, but the oil company responsible for the damage is owned by her parents and other members of her family.

   After he takes her home with him, she leaves with a massive amount of sleeping pills along with her. And then disappears completely. Archer is hired by her husband to help find her, but matters are complicated by a ransom note received by her family. Is it real, or is it a fake? A scheme designed for revenge. For the money? Is she part of her disappearance herself?

   This is something that has happened in the past, several years earlier. It is part of her makeup. Part of her history.

   The opening is fine. It’s the investigation Archer undertakes that follows this that struggles to match it. The woman has a large, complicated family, and there is a lot of baggage that has accumulated over the years. Archer’s job: to make his way through all the physical and mental debris that has piled up, including murder, questioning everyone as he goes, driving from family member to family member to near exhaustion.

   There is not much action. This is adult stuff. It is also a book I had not read until now, but I’m sure if I had read it earlier, a lot of what Archer brings out into the light of day would have been over my head, in terms of having experienced anything similar. I would have been too young. And then there’s this. The back story, as revealed, is not as interesting even now as it should have been. A list of characters and who they are would have helped.

   But, and I am still trying to work out how this is true, the story is compelling. There’s plenty of guilt to spread around, and that includes that caused directly by the killer. My greatest wish is that I’d rather have had the killer’s identity come out as something other than an anti-climax.