The Moving Target

The Moving Target introduced Lew Archer, a well-known fictional detective featured in seventeen additional novels. The movie, Harper, starring Paul Newman as Lew Archer, was based on this book. . Kenneth Millar, whose primary pseudonym was Ross Macdonald, wrote this book as John Macdonald. Macdonald created the fictional city of Santa Teresa, a city modeled on Santa Barbara, California. He portrayed a city divided between an easy-living rich class and a poor underclass. The book was well received when released with a New York Times Book Review describing it as a return of “the much-abused hard-boiled detective story to its original Hammet-high level.” In a 2017, the Wall Street Journal summarizes Macdonald’s style: "... it is the sheer beauty of Macdonald’s laconic style—with its seductive rhythms and elegant plainness—that holds us spellbound. 'Hard-boiled,' 'noir,' 'mystery,' it doesn’t matter what you call it.” New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949. 1st edition. 245 pages. Hardcover book