[Publib] After hours use <g>

[Nann Blaine Hilyard]

>From today's "Writer's Almanac":  note how he got into the library!



Nann







It's the birthday of the mystery novelist who wrote under the name Ross Macdonald<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,d2h9,dv,id0i,4ep5,katy,2v6d>, (books by this author<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,d2h9,dv,7sxg,lt7q,katy,2v6d>) born Kenneth Millar in Los Gatos, California (1915). His father abandoned the family, and his mother struggled to support him, occasionally begging for money on the street. He read a lot growing up, even climbing the fire escape of the town library at night so that he could read the authors who were off limits to young people during the day.

One summer, he won a typewriter in a radio quiz show. He started publishing stories and humor pieces, and wrote some moderately successful spy and crime novels. And then he invented a private investigator named Lew Archer. He wrote a book about his new character, a book called The Moving Target (1949), and he went on to write 18 Lew Archer novels. Most of these novels are about characters trying to uncover some mystery at the heart of their families, often having to do with lost fathers. Millar became known as one of the authors who helped elevate the mystery novel to the level of serious literature.