ATD & Raymond Chandler

[MalignD at aol.com]

<< The Lew Archer reference is a must. Ross Macdonald said of his character 
if you turned him sideways he'd disappear. The books work by Lew asking 
questions and then more questions and the focal characters of  each drama gradually 
reveal the entanglements and agonies of the past which have produced the 
current situation that 
Lew has been called upon to resolve. >>

MacDonald was great plotter.  Because, as you say, of his use of history, 
never do his plots hang by coincidence.  Every seeming coincidence, however 
seemingly far-fetched, connects in the end.

Eudora Welty was a great fan of his (by the way).