Wed 19 Mar 2025
ROSS MACDONALD – Blue City. Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 1947, published under the author’s real name, Kenneth Millar. A shortened version was serialized in the August and September 1950 issues of Esquire. Dell #363, paperback, 1949? Reprint paperback editions are plentiful, most often published by Bantam under the pen name Ross Macdonald. Film: Paramount Pictures, 1986, with Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy. (See comment #4.)
Another tale of a son seeking revenge for his father’s death. Johnny Weather returns to an unnamed Midwestern city after the war to discover that his father, one of the town’s crooked bosses, had been shot and killed two years earlier.
It is the idealism of war versus the realities of city life, with its political corruption sanctioned by anti-union big business, that drives Johnny against the powers that have covered up the murder. His activities soon stir up a great deal of reaction, including a couple of particularly bloody murders, before he finds how far ambition can drive a man to guilt.
A mayor running on a campaign of reform has found that ends often are confused with means, and convinces himself that murder, or rather assassination, can be justified.
Weather comes on strong, though he did not really acre for his father, and it is this over-aggressiveness that is a bit too much to absorb. In the background, life is described as it went on after the war, in one of MacDonald’s earlier stories.
Rating: ****½

March 19th, 2025 at 11:57 am
I haven’t read this book in years, but do remember liking it. The general consensus is that this title is a rip-off of Hammett’s RED HARVEST.
March 19th, 2025 at 11:59 am
I should have said above that the BOOK itself is a rip-off of Hammett’s book.
March 19th, 2025 at 12:14 pm
I haven’t read the book since I wrote this review, and it is time to do so again. I wish I had mentioned the influence Hammmet must have had on the writing of this one, but I was too young back then to make a claim like that and be absolutely sure of my footing.
March 19th, 2025 at 4:01 pm
My favourite Ross Macdonald novel, with TROUBLE FOLLOWS ME and the first Lew Archers as close runners-up. There was a godawful, almost unrecognisable movie version in 1986. How bad? Macdonald’s ultra-tough Johnny Weather was played by Judd Nelson. That’s how bad.
March 19th, 2025 at 5:52 pm
Ouch. I completely forgot about the movie. Thanks, Fred. I’ve just added a mention of it to the data at the top of the review. (I never saw it.)
March 20th, 2025 at 10:25 am
What a coincidence — I’ve been reading this book this week! Whether derivative or not, I think he’s a pretty good writer. I particularly liked The Underground Man. One of his strong suits, I think, is his dialogue.
March 21st, 2025 at 10:18 am
I love the DELL paperback cover for BLUE CITY. But the novel…not so much. But Ross Macdonald got a whole lot better in future mysteries!
March 22nd, 2025 at 12:45 am
I agree with George Kelley in comment #7. I read BLUE CITY in 1966 and did not think it outstanding at all and then I reread it in 2009 and again thought it just ok, but nothing special. But Ross Macdonald improved quite a bit with the Lew Archer series a short time later.
I see the NY Times just had an article about a starter pack of the best PI novels. Hammett was first, then Chandler, and Ross Macdonald third with THE GALTON CASE.
March 22nd, 2025 at 10:38 am
I believe that NY Times piece was by Sarah Weinman. Anything she writes or has to say about the field of mystery and detective fiction comes out well.
It’s behind a paywall, so I can’t see it either, but just in case you can maneuver it:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/21/books/private-eye-detective-books-mystery.html
March 23rd, 2025 at 2:01 am
Macdonald really didn’t have the passion to write a really good RED HARVEST style book, there is no doubt he is a fine writer, but I was more impressed by the Adams, Latimer, Ard, Halliday, and even Spillane takes on a HARVEST novel.