Millar, Kenneth

Millar, Kenneth: see Macdonald, Ross.

---

Millar, Kenneth (John Macdonald, John Ross Macdonald, Ross Macdonald, pen names) (1915–83) writer; born in Los Gatos, Calif. He studied at the University of Western Ontario (B.A. 1938), the University of Toronto (1938–39), and the University of Michigan (M.A. 1943; Ph.D. 1951). He taught history and English at the Kitchener Collegiate Institute, Ontario (1939–41), and at the University of Michigan (1942–44; 1948–49). Best known as Ross Macdonald, he is credited with turning the detective novel genre into a literary form. His best-known creation, the hard-boiled detective, Miles Archer, is named after Sam Spade's partner in The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. Millar won many awards for such work as The Wycherly Woman (1961), The Zebra-Striped Hearse (1962), and The Chill (1964). Beginning in 1945 he lived in Santa Barbara, Calif.