 First edition | |
| Author | Ross Macdonald |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Lew Archer |
| Genre | Mystery novel |
| Publisher | Knopf |
Publication date | 1958 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| ISBN | 9-997-51958-2 |
| OCLC | 1376657 |
| Preceded by | The Barbarous Coast |
| Followed by | The Galton Case |
The Doomsters is a 1958 mystery novel by American writerRoss Macdonald, the seventh book in hisLew Archer series.
Archer is hired by escaped mental patient Carl Hallman to investigate the deaths of his wealthy and influential parents. His mother died in a drowning several years earlier, and his father, a Senator, died more recently. Carl claims to have been sent to a mental hospital by his older brother to prevent him from exposing the family's dark secrets, and escaped to contact Archer. Carl's brother dies in a shooting that is blamed on Carl, and a manhunt for Carl ensues across the family's vast orange orchards and surrounding property. The more Archer investigates, the more suspects he finds for the trio of deaths that haunt the Hallman family.
The title is taken from the poemTo an Unborn Pauper Child, byThomas Hardy:
The poem reflects on the difficulty of escaping the lot to which we are born, an underlying theme of Macdonald's book.
Many sources agree[citation needed] that this book marked a turning point in the series, wherein Macdonald abandoned his imitations ofRaymond Chandler andDashiell Hammett and found his own voice. It also marks Lew Archer as a man more interested in understanding the criminal than in catching him. Macdonald describedThe Doomsters and its successor,The Galton Case (1959), as the books where after a decade as a professional novelist he felt most satisfied with his writing.[2]
Writing inThe New York Times, criticAnthony Boucher called the book a study of the "complex strands that shape responsibility and doom," and "an analysis at once compassionate and cruel, giving dimension and meaning to an unusually well paced and characterized puzzle of murder."[3]
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