The Return of Lew Archer

When you think hard-boiled detective fiction, three names should instantly come to mind -- Dashiel Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald.  Kenneth Millar, who wrote under the Macdonald pen name, created the iconic detective Lew Archer, a Southern California P.I. who cracked dangerous cases in the '50s and '60s.

Deadline New York reports that Warner Bros. has acquired the rights to the Ross Macdonald mystery series and they plan to launch a franchise starting with the 1959 book, The Galton Case.  The eighth book in the series, The Galton Case follows Archer as he's hired to track down the missing heir to a fortune.

Paul Newman portrayed Lew Archer in two films,  the 1966 Warner Bros. film Harper and The Drowning Pool in 1975.  But don't judge a book by its film.  If you haven't read Ross Macdonald before, you might like to sample his writing style with the short story, "Find the Woman," in the anthology, Los Angeles Noir 2:  The Classics edited by Denise Hamilton. 

An excellent biography is Tom Nolan's 1999 book, Ross Macdonald: the Life of a Mystery Writer.