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The Wycherly Woman Audiobook
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(3.02) - 333 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
Phoebe Wycherly was missing two months before her wealthy father hired Lew Archer to find her.
That was plenty of time for a young girl who wanted to disappear to do so thoroughly—or for someone to make her disappear. And before he could locate the Wycherly girl, Archer had to reckon with the Wycherly woman, Phoebe’s mother, an eerily unmaternal blonde who kept too many residences, had too many secrets, and left too many corpses in her wake.
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"As usual, guilt reaches across generations to pollute the lives of Southern California families. The search for a missing daughter is the occasion for revealing the corruption. This is a worthy entry in the Lew Archer series, the private detetive cycle closest to Greek tragedy."
— Bill (4 out of 5 stars)
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“Grover Gardner is ideal as the iconic Lew Archer…Gardner keeps it tense, dramatic, and thoroughly entertaining, his performance a perfect match for Macdonald’s pace and style. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile -
“[A] fine example of noir hard-boiled mystery at its best. Audie® Award–winning experienced narrator Grover Gardner’s retro pace and spirit capture the bleak early 1960s on the Upper Peninsula of California from San Francisco down to the sleepy towns of Palo Alto and San Jose, pre-Silicon valley…Classic novel, classy reader.”
— Soundcommentary.com (starred review) -
“A fine yarn…The pace is fast, the plot well-knit with plenty of suspense and surprise as extra dividends.”
— Chicago Tribune -
“Lew Archer [is] up to his neck in murder, kidnapping, and blackmail—just another day at the office. This is hard-boiled detective writing at the top of its form.”
— Library Journal -
“Archer solves crimes with the instincts of a psychologist and the conscience of a priest, and the mid-twentieth-century Southern California setting is a wonderful ride in the Wayback Machine.”
— Los Angeles Times, praise for the series
Awards
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A 2010 AudioFile Best Voice Winner
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One of SoundCommentary.com’s The Best of the Best
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Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award
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A Los Angeles Times Pick of Best Mystery Series
The Wycherly Woman Listener Reviews
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" Another Archer mystery, his cynicism and realism towards life is the most entertaining. "
— Roshni, 5/4/2013 -
" If Shakespeare collaborated with Steinbeck, this is the type of crime novel they would come up with. "
— Rachel, 3/12/2013 -
" This one is more like...a four-and-a-half for me. It's as tangled as you can get, has waaaay more plot points than are necessary, but is highly enjoyable anyway! "
— Shannon, 6/23/2012 -
" I love Ross MacDonald, but this was not one of my favorites. "
— Austen, 3/21/2012 -
" Didn't quite meet my usual high Ross McDonald standards but still a good read. "
— Ram, 12/20/2011 -
" Wasn't my favorite book! But I enjoyed the writing style enough that I'm trying another of his! "
— Heather, 3/14/2011 -
" I'm amazed I've never read any of Macdonald's books before. My loss. If you can get past the period misogyny and dated references to appreciate the mystery and his turn of phrase, then you should like it as much as I did. "
— David, 12/8/2010 -
" Re-reading this great mystery by Ross MacDonald. Neat plot twists; great descriptions of the Peninsula, Santa Barbara ("Boulder Beach"), Santa Cruz ("Medicine Stone") and other Calif locales. "
— Denise, 9/9/2010 -
" The actual title of this book is The Wycherly Woman. This book has it all: murder, corruption, and a missing daughter, all set in 1960s California. It is also a fine example of Macdonald's storytelling ability. This is both literature and a page-turning detective tale. "
— Timothy, 6/2/2010
About Ross Macdonald
Ross Macdonald (1915–1983) was the pen name of Kenneth Millar. For over twenty years he lived in Santa Barbara and wrote mystery novels about the fascinating and changing society of his native state. He is widely credited with elevating the detective novel to the level of literature with his compactly written tales of murder and despair. His works have received awards from the Mystery Writers of America and of Great Britain, and his book The Moving Target was made into the movie Harper in 1966. In 1982 he was awarded the Eye Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Private Eye Writers of America.
About Grover Gardner
Grover Gardner (a.k.a. Tom Parker) is an award-winning narrator with over a thousand titles to his credit. Named one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards, was chosen Narrator of the Year for 2005 by Publishers Weekly, and has earned more than thirty Earphones Awards.