Ross Macdonald a.k.a. Kenneth Millar: Trouble Follows Me (USA 2013)

From the Publisher:
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 Sues past, he finds another corpse -- and a dangerous conspiracy that stretches all the way back to his Motor City home.

PRAISE FOR ROSS MACDONALD
"[The] American private eye, immortalized by Hammett, refined by Chandler, brought to its zenith by Macdonald." -- The New York Times

"No once since Macdonald has written with such poetic inevitability about people, their secret cares, their emotional scars, their sadness, cowardice, and courage. He reminded the rest of us of what was possible in our genre." -- John Lutz, author of Single White Female

"The greatest mystery novelist of his age, I would argue, even greater than Chandler." -- John Connolly, author of Every Dead Thing

ROSS MACDONALD
was a pseudonym for Kenneth Millar, an author of detective fiction best known for creating the character of Lew Archer, a California PI. The Moving Target (1949) was the first of more than a dozen Lew Archer novels, which established Millar as one of the finest crime novelists of his day. He is often included in the "holy trinity of detective fiction," along with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

Ross Macdonald a.k.a. Kenneth Millar: Trouble Follows Me. Mysteriouspress.com / Open Road Integrated Media, ISBN: 9781453295571 (February, 2013), 210 p., $14.95 (?).

Ross Macdonald: Trouble Follows Me (USA 1983)

From the Publisher:
Backside:
TROUBLE FOLLOWS ME
The blonde had eyes the color of cornflowers and o body whose curves just didn't quit. Her sweet kisses and a good bottle of bourbon were all Sam Drake wanted when his ship docked in Honolulu and gave him a chance to forget the war. But what Sam got was trouble. The first time it was a body swinging at the end of a rope The second time it was a throat slit ear to ear. And by the third time, even a long swallow of bad booze couldn't wash away the bitter memory of death, and tough. Navy nan Sam Drake found himself trapped in a dangerous lame of unfaithful husbands, international intique and cold-blooded murder.

ROSS MACDONALD Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award, Ross Macdonald is acknowledged around the world as one of the greatest mystery writers of our time. The New York Times has called his books featuring private investigator lew Archer "the finest series of detective novels ever written by an American.

Inside:
DEATH CALLED THERE FIRST.
The hallway was cold and empty. I knocked on the door and waited. I might have waited forever if I hadn't turned the knob and gone in.

Bessie Land was flat on her back on the bed, staring at the discolored ceiling. One arm hung over the edge of the bed so that the hand half-rested on the foor. From the hand spread a pool of blood. A white mongrel puppy huddled there, licking the bloody hand.

When I moved nearer, the dog crawled under the bed. I saw that Bessie Land's throat was deeply cut. The pull of the skin had made a raw ellipse in her darkly glistening neck. A wavy-edged bread knife rested on the quilt beside her head. She had her coat on, but it did not prevent her from being terribly cold.

Ross Macdonald: Trouble Follows Me. Originally published under the name of KENNETH MILLAR. Bantam Books, ISBN: 0553235168 (August, 1983), 196 p., $2.95.

Kenneth Millar: Trouble Follows Me (USA 1950)

From the Publisher:
At first he thought it was a thick grotesque vine, casting a heavy shadow against the moonlit wall. It wasn't. It was the body of a woman.
that was DEATH NUMBER ONE

She was flat on her back on the bed, staring at the discolored ceiling. From her throat spread a pool of blood. A white mongrel puppy licked the bloody hand that half-rested on the floor.
that was DEATH NUMBER TWO

Hatcher was kneeling on the floor in a posture similar to the Moslem attitude of prayer. His head was turned sideways, his one visible eye looking blankly at the blank wall. There was about him the souring sweet smell of sickness and drugs.
that was DEATH NUMBER THREE

Sam Drake was tracking a spy ring. Death tracked him.

Kenneth Millar: Trouble Follows Me. A BIG BLONDE - A HOT SPY RING - and D-E-A-T-H! New York: Lion Books, 1950, Lion Book #47, 196 p., ¢25.