The Underground Man (1971) is an interesting read — looking back from 2026.

One in the series of hardboiled novels set in Southern California and featuring private detective Lew Archer. 

The slow pace. The odd, jilted dialogue. The attention to details.

Interesting.

But — ultimately — you have to conclude this is a BAD BOOK.

The plot is confusing and dumb.

The ending inconclusive.

As a mysterious fire rages through the hills above a privileged town in Southern California, Lew Archer tracks a missing child who may be the pawn in a marital struggle or the victim of a bizarre kidnapping.

What he uncovers amid the ashes is murder—and a trail of motives as combustible as gasoline.

If any writer can be said to have inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler, it was Ross Macdonald.

Between the late 1940s and his death in 1983, he gave the American crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity that his predecessors had only hinted at.

It was adapted as a TV movie in 1974. You can watch the entire thing on YouTube.

Peter Graves is Lew Archer.

The movie is not very good. 😀 Worse than the book.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.