Although there are no direct literary precedents for Macdonald's later fiction, he owes a good deal to both Hammett and Chandler, of course, but he has brought his own set of interests to bear on his books which has altered them considerably from previous crime fiction. His academic background provides an almost unnoticed richness, not of quotation and reference, but of human understanding. His observation through Archer is keen and unequaled in detective fiction of the period. Ross Macdonald came as close as any writer to genuinely using the genre for serious literary purposes.