The Three Roads

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The Three Roads is a 1948 mystery novel written by Ross Macdonald.

"For now I am discovered vile, and of the vile. O ye three roads, and thou concealed dell, and Oaken copse, and narrow outlet of three ways, which drank my own blood..." - Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus.

Lieutenant Bret Taylor had married his wife after knowing her only over a single overnight drinking binge while on shore leave during the war. His ship is bombed out of the water and he returns home to find his wife freshly murdered in the home he bought but had never seen. The shock of the two events send him into a mental lapse. and he's in an asylum for a mental lapse. The woman who loves him, a successful screenwriter, calls in a specialist and this specialist jogs his memory--and his sense of duty. Taylor hits the streets of Los Angeles, digging through his wives lies and lovers in an attempt to avenge her murder.

This book is a psychological thriller, with the main action being the unraveling of the story within Taylor's mind. The reader being denied information that other major characters obviously have throughout the whole novel and is meanwhile treated to long passages of theories from the main character. The limited number of characters keeps the possible solutions to a minimum and the book is perhaps more straightforward than what makes a good mystery.

Knopf, who functioned as an editing publisher, asked for revisions in what he considered a slow-paced novel. Macdonald cut '10,000 good words' and concentrated the action into four days.