This is one of the stronger novels in this series.

My opinion of The Barbarous Coast suffered from how I read it: a few pages at a time, right before sleep, over a period of ten or more days. I lost the thread and missed the clues, and was left with a hazy and irritated recollection of a bunch of flawed people in an ugly situation. Fortunately, I had the good sense to read it again (it's not that long), which took only a couple of sessions, and see the ingeniousness with which it's put together, and the way the pieces are all laid out for the reader at the beginning. I ended by admiring the book very much.

Unlike many readers of mystery-thrillers, I'm not a person who enjoys difficult puzzles, so working out the solution to a mystery isn't part of my reading process. I'm in it for the prose, for the setting, and for the characters, pretty much in that order. I don't remember the plots of most books after I finish them; what I remember is the atmosphere they conjured when I was immersed in them. This novel has plenty of that, too; just as I like reading about a Los Angeles with orange groves on its outskirts, I love reading about a Malibu that still has room for a trailer court. But if you read mysteries for the mystery, you'll probably think this is one of the better Macdonalds. ( )

El asesinato del detective Reardon en el distrito 87 hace saltar todas las alarmas en la comisaría de policía. De pronto, todo el mundo se convierte en sospechoso y nadie parece contar todo lo que sabe acerca del caso. Carella deberá apresurarse, a la vez que cubrirse las espaldas, porque todo apunta a que él mismo podría ser el próximo en morir.

Listened to this one. Pretty great, though i know it doesn't have the highest reputation. An innocent husband comes in from Canada to find his missing wife in the sleazy land of LA / private clubs / hollywood lowland. Hires Lew to do the hunting and he bumps into toughs from the studio and las vegas world. He is knocked out, pounded, tied up, etc but always manages to get the slip on the bad guys. It all ends up at the private pricey night club it started at - with the wispy head of the club in it with the iffy sanity wife of the important movie head. A bit outlandish - but a great ride. ( )

This one just didn’t click with me, way too many characters in a short novel used primarily for misdirection ( )