Suzanne H. (DameEdna) -
John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series of books are classics - read them all - you won't be sorry!
Travis McGee series
It was called Love...
In another season there were girls of Summer, robust and playful in their sandy ways, and now here were the winter ones with cool surmise in the tended eye fragrant and speculative, strolling, sailing and tanning , making their night music and night scent. And ther there was Gretel.
Gretel had discovered the key to me--all of me and suddenly I had something to hope for. Then terribly, unexpectantly she was dead. From a mysterious illness. they told me. But I knew they were lying Gretel hed been murdered. And now I was out for blood.
In another season there were girls of Summer, robust and playful in their sandy ways, and now here were the winter ones with cool surmise in the tended eye fragrant and speculative, strolling, sailing and tanning , making their night music and night scent. And ther there was Gretel.
Gretel had discovered the key to me--all of me and suddenly I had something to hope for. Then terribly, unexpectantly she was dead. From a mysterious illness. they told me. But I knew they were lying Gretel hed been murdered. And now I was out for blood.
There are more than twenty novels in John D MacDonald's "color" series, which features Travis McGee. I've read them all at least twice, in order. This one is my very favorite. Altho it was penned in 1979, the plotline is extremely topical today, in our post-9/11 world. But there's more than that, to make this great reading. (It does fall quite late in the series, so don't start with this one!) In this story, our lovable here faces his greatest challenges, and his greatest loss as well. The action alternates between a slow burning tension and heart-pumping foot-chases. We find Travis both introspective and wildly combative. This is one of those rare books that will indeed keep you turning pages well past your bedtime, even when you read it the second time. MacDonald died just a few years after he wrote "Ripper," and some twenty years after he began the series. This book, and those very few that followed it, prove that the author was at the top of his game when we lost him.
McGee's investigation into the suspicious death of his most recent lover leads him to search for a mysterious religious cult in northern California, which turns out to be a front for a massive terrorist organization. Pretty grim stuff here, and his friend Meyer's gloomy predictions (a frightening number of which have come to pass since the book's 1979 publication date) don't help the overall downer tone.
An interesting book by another underrated, lost, and almost forgotten novelist. This one is murder mystery in the vein of Mary Roberts Rinehart, Dorothy L. Sayers, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler. One of the Travis McGee novels all titled to include a hue from the color spectrum. McGee, something other than a professional detective, has the qualities of a Sam Spade, or Philip Marlowe, bedding down the best of the dames (although not all of themhe does pass on some), but always with a more polished prose. The author, always the sociological sexologist, is up to tune. Not a shabby read for a quiet evening or two.
I love mysteries and thrillers. Recently discovered books by John D. MacDonald, and this one is exceptional. Kept me interested from first to last page.
