The Barbarous Coast

The novel takes an acid view of Southern California society that foreshadows Macdonald's later treatment of cross-generational deterministic themes.

Lew Archer is summoned to the Channel Club on Malibu Beach and stops to talk to the gateman, Tony Torres.

In his office is an old photograph of three divers in action who are identified as Hester Campbell, as she was then known, Gabrielle Torres (Tony's daughter) and her cousin Manuel (who now calls himself Lance).

Since the three were photoed together, Gabrielle had been found shot dead on the beach, Hester had run away from Malibu and married Wall in Toronto, while Lance had started working for the gangster Carl Stern.

There he is beaten up by one of Stern's thugs and taken to be interrogated by Leroy Frost, head of security at Helio-Graff; after receiving a further beating when he resists, he finally manages to escape.

That title had been rejected by Knopf, who offered alternatives inspired by fellow crime writer Mickey Spillane, such as "Cut the Throat Slowly" and "My Gun Is Me".

[3] There may also be a connection between this title and Archer's Chandleresque denunciation of the relationship between Hollywood culture and its links with organized crime, which is one of the novel's themes.

[4] As he is flying back to Los Angeles from Las Vegas with Rina Campbell, she comments that the pressure of fear which she had been under had made her feel "like a whore – as though I wasn’t worth anything to myself".

Archer's judgment is echoed in the words of a contemporary review that appeared in The Detroit News: "Not since the novels of Nathanael West has the theme of American innocence grinding to a stop at the polluted waters of the Pacific so consistently reverberated through a body of writing".

Joseph Tobias, having served as a black soldier, chooses the way of education and seems trapped in the role of life guard at the socially exclusive Channel Club.

Tony Torres had chosen boxing as his avenue away from Anti-Mexican sentiment and afterwards serves grudgingly as the Channel Club's security guard.

[8] The novel marks the initiation of Macdonald's interest in treating cross-generational themes that was to be such of feature of his later books, even as he turned at the same time to the task of facing up to his own personal devils.