The Doomsters by Ross Macdonald
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I really enjoy the Lew Archer character. MacDonald has a gritty noir style you don’t see anymore. The plot involves two brothers from a wealthy family. Both their parents died under suspicious circumstances and the brothers seem at each other’s throat. One of them had just escaped from a mental treatment facility when the book starts. There’s a too-slick doctor, a lecherous sheriff, and a couple of shapely wives in the mix, both of whom hate the other. Some people get shot or stabbed. That’s enough of a start to get the feel. Archer remains as the sole level head and cool customer.
I’d give it a higher rating if the ending weren’t such an unholy mess. Everything is tied up in a flurry of confessions by just about everybody concerning a whole bunch of sins in the distant past. None of it is predictable from the preceding 200 odd pages, which is another reason not to rate it high, but it was fun enough to fill in a few leisure hours.