E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

There was a quite good retrospective little essay by Tobias Jones on the North American crime writer, Ross Macdonald , in the Guardian recently. Macdonald has been one of my favourite novelists since playwright Morwyn Brebner turned me on to his work over twenty years ago. For those who love Chandler , Macdonald does deepen that oeuvre. I went to Foyles, the UK bookstore, the other day, to see how Macdonald was doing. There was only one of his books available, whereas the crime shelves featured more than a dozen books by most well-known crime authors. It seems his rep may have flagged, at least over here. Of his many classic books, The Blue Hammer , his last of the Lew Archers, moves me the most. I find the key trope almost unbearably moving.