The Three Roads is a 1948

1948 in literature

The year 1948 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The Pulitzer Prize for the Novel is renamed the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction....

 mystery novel written by Ross Macdonald

Ross Macdonald

Not to be confused with John D. MacDonaldRoss Macdonald is the pseudonym of the American-Canadian writer of crime fiction Kenneth Millar...

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"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

Sophocles

Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...

, Oedipus Tyrannus

Plot summary

Lieutenant Bret Taylor 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 sends him into a mental lapse, and he's in an asylum. The woman who loves him, a successful screenwriter, calls in a specialist who jogs his memory—and his sense of duty. Taylor hits the streets of Los Angeles, digging through his wife's lies and lovers in an attempt to avenge her murder.

The book is a psychological thriller, with the main action being the unraveling of the story within Taylor's mind. The reader is 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.

Alfred A. Knopf, Jr.

Alfred A. Knopf, Jr.

Alfred Abraham Knopf, Jr. was one of the founders of Atheneum Publishers in 1959.-Biography:He was the only child of publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. and Blanche Wolf. He was born in White Plains, New York, on June 17, 1918. At 7, in 1925 he was sent to a boarding school, first at the Riverdale...

, 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.

The 1985 movie Deadly Companion

Deadly Companion

Deadly Companion is a 1980 Canadian mystery film based on the novel The Three Roads by Ross Macdonald.-Plot:...

(or Double Negative) was based on this novel.