Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Cool mystery, Jul 12 2004
John D. MacDonald's mysteries are as tasty as the hamburgers of the same name! I love all the Magee books!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Probably one of the top three McGees, Jul 8 2004
Early every summer, I knock back one McGee mystery before July and, try as I might to resist, I usually end up reading at least one or two more by the time fall arrives. I have Hemingway that's unread; I have Mailer and Faulkner that continually remains uncracked; and I've been meaning to tackle "The Corrections" forfreakingever. And yet... I can't help it, there's something about sun-bleached days and cricket-filled nights that lends itself incredibly well to this series. This is definitely one of the best of the McGee adventures. Trav and Meyer run afoul of backwoods law enforcement and McGee spends the rest of the book stripping away layers of vicious, small-town corruption with the admirable ease of a man peeling a banana. All the great MacDonald hallmarks are here: there's a surprising amount of eroticism, several tense face-offs and twists and turns, some slick legal manuvering, a couple of pretty scary discoveries and a cast of cool characters: the top-heavy, man-hungry waitress Betty; a pill-popping psycho with a badge and a prostitution ring; and, best of all, a crazed, superhumanly strong, swamp-bred superbabe who likes to lift up Pintos and coo in womens' ears when she's torturing them. Added to which is a great ending, plus a nice vacation from the nautical details and dense business technicalities which are staples of the series but which, as proven here, don't have to be on full display every time around.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A top notch Travis McGee tale, Jan 12 2003
Aside from the first Travis McGee story, this (the 11th in the series) may be the best. Here Travis and his buddy Meyer are driving on a remote road through the south Florida Everglades returning from a friend's duaghter's wedding, when trouble erupts. A girl runs across the desolate road, causing McGee to swerve and rollover into the swamp, and before McGee has gathered his wits he and Meyer are being shot at, and ultimately locked up and charged with murder. The local sheriff, a "by the book" lawman with a history of deep personal loss, lets McGee out of prison while he investigates the case, confining McGee to the local county. Before we know it, McGee is bedding down a lonely but optimistic waitress, uncovering secrets about this sleepy little Everglades town including a call girl ring. McGee is confident and clever, but there is a sense of vulnerability about him that is refreshing for a mystery series since you sense that he realizes the trouble he is in, as the bodies start piling up. I also thought some of the minor characters in the book, including the waitress Betsy Kapp and the evil Lilo, were very skillfully drawn. Without giving away any of the story, let me just say there were a handful of great twists and turns in the plot, with MacDonald building the suspense nicely. This is not War and Peace, but I give it 5 stars as one of the better mystery novels I have read in awhile.
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Most recent customer reviews
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by John D. MacDonald
by John D. MacDonald
by John D. MacDonald
by John D. MacDonald
by John D. MacDonald
