The Moving Target

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The Moving Target
Cover of 1998 Vintage edition
Author	Ross Macdonald
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Lew Archer
Genre(s)	Mystery
Publisher	Random House Inc
Publication date	1949
Media type	Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
ISBN	ISBN 9-997-51949-3
Followed by	The Drowning Pool

The Moving Target is a 1949 mystery novel, written by Ross Macdonald.

This is the first Ross Macdonald novel to feature the character of Lew Archer, who would define the author's career. Lew Archer is hired by the dispassionate wife of an eccentric oil tycoon who has gone missing. Archer must dig through a strange cast of Los Angeles characters, finding crime after crime before he can get to the job he was hired to do.

This book invented the fictional city of Santa Teresa, which was used instead of Santa Barbara. Sue Grafton would later set her successful "alphabet novels" in this fictional town of Macdonald's.

This novel would become the basis for the 1966 Paul Newman film Harper, thanks in no small part to then-rookie screenwriter William Goldman.

Ross Macdonald (Kenneth Millar) originally titled this book The Snatch. When the book was published, he chose the pseudonym John Macdonald after his father, John Macdonald Millar. It is believed he didn't want to use his own name as his wife was already an established writer.