MystereBooks: Ross Macdonald's First Two Detective Novels, Now Available as eBooks

Mysterious Press released today two of Ross Macdonald's earliest books, including his first published full-length novel, The Dark Tunnel.

Ross Macdonald was a pen name used by Kenneth Millar, and it is under his real name that he wrote the two books featured here … though Mysterious Press chose to use on the cover the name the author is best known as.

Millar was a graduate student at the University of Michigan when he wrote The Dark Tunnel, a stand-alone detective story that was published in 1944. Two years later Trouble Follows Me was published. It wasn't until 1949 that the author wrote his first "Lew Archer" mystery, The Moving Target, the lead character for which he is probably best known today.

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The Dark Tunnel
Ross Macdonald

On the home front, two wartime lovers reunite under a cloud of paranoia …

In 1937 Munich, an American must be careful when he smokes his pipe. Robert Branch, a careless academic, makes the mistake of lighting up when the Führer is about to begin a procession, and nearly gets pummeled for his mistake. Only the timely intervention of Ruth Esch, a flame-haired actress, saves him. So begins a month-long romance between East and West — a torrid affair that ends when the lovers make the mistake of defending a Jew, earning Branch a beating and Esch a trip to a concentration camp.

Six years later, Esch escapes to Vichy and makes her way to Detroit. To her surprise, Branch is waiting for her. He is a professor, working for the war effort, and his paranoia about a spy inside the Motor City war board sours their reunion. Once again, a dangerous net is encircling these lovers — a reminder that, in this war, love always comes second to death.

      

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Trouble Follows Me
Ross Macdonald

In the last days of World War II, a sailor discovers a transcontinental conspiracy …

It is February 1945, and the war in the Pacific is nearing its climax. In Hawaii on his way to a new post, US Navy ensign Sam Drake stumbles across the girl of his dreams. Mary is a disc jockey, with a voice that's famous across the islands for playing late night jazz that no young lover can resist. Before he can follow this modern siren home, they go to check on Mary's coworker Sue — but that lovely young lady will never spin another record.

They find her strung up and dangling outside the window of a bathroom, her face twisted into an ugly mask. The police call it suicide, but Sam is not so sure. Few beautiful women, even suicidal ones, are willing to be so hideous in death. Looking into Sue's past, he finds another corpse — and a dangerous conspiracy that stretches all the way back to his Motor City home.