The Deep Blue Good-by by John D. MacDonald Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Deep Blue Good-by
Book Review: A Master of Suspense creates a hero for the ages
Summary: 5 Stars
Sit back and relax. Start at page 1 and take the ride of your life with Travis McGee. This first book in the series is an excellent starting point for first-timers because all the ingredients for the McGee stories are here-a lady in distress, a stolen "treasure", and a brutal unrelenting villain. MacDonald had a talent for involving you so deeply that you find yourself going back to re-read passages that hit you hard the first time. Junior Allen is a perfect villain--A force of nature motivated by greed with an ever-deepening bent towards sexual brutality. This book contains storytelling so vivid that you feel the punches with McGee. This book, along with Donald Hamilton's Death of a Citizen, is the perfect example of the 50s-60s Fawcett Originals.Book Review: A Step Back in Storytelling Time
Summary: 4 Stars
There are many modern-day suspense, mystery and thriller writers who state that John D. MacDonald was their primary inspiration. Dean Koontz, John Connelly and T. Jefferson Parker to name three. And Stephen King as well. Those are some powerful endorsements. And because of those endorsements I decided to start reading MacDonald from the beginning of his Travis McGee tales: The Deep Blue Good-By. Upon finishing this book, which I would recommend to anyone, I could see where the praise came from. MacDonald was one of the first authors to successfully nail the repeating, conflicted hero. In fact, MacDonald brings all of his characters to life and in a way that's smooth and entertaining. It is his characterization that I think is his greatest skill. If you like characters, then you should like this book. It was fun to read and easy to digest. But I do have a small cautionary note to make. I think the reader should remember that MacDonald's stories are told in the social and political climate of the 1960s. This was also Ian Flemmings' era and his James Bond. I saw that one critiquer didn't like this book because he didn't like Travis McGee's character, lacking modivation and casual & flippant in his attitudes about disposable women. All I say as a warning is to try and consider the context of the storytelling. Applying 2010 social morals to a novel written in 1964 is not really a fair basis of judgment. I think the James Bond of Ian Flemming would receive similar comments. If you're easily offended by social morals that are from a different era, then I would suggest you not read this novel. However, if you enjoy plain-old good storytelling and don't have a problem stepping back fifty years into American society, then I think you'll get a kick out of reading this book. I know I did.Book Review: A new Travis McGee fan?
Summary: 4 Stars
I recently overheard someone saying how much they enjoyed the Travis McGee books so I searched out the first-in-the-series at my local library. The copy I ended up reading was about the most worn out, dog-eared, common pocket book you can imagine. Some how it was quit fitting. The Travis McGee character is unique and appealing to probably both men and women readers. Kind of a Han Solo guy but wiser and more mellow. The author's writing style is more inventive and engaging than typical; the pace varies from silky-smooth to rapid Rainman word association. Creative with word combinations. Maybe not always grammatically correct (?) but the intended feeling and description shines through every paragraph. Interesting plot. A unique villain easy to despise... you can't wait for him to get his comeuppance. You'll have to read it to see how it unfolds.Book Review: A sweaty-palmed thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the first in the popular, long-running Travis McGee series of thrillers, first published in 1964. The next three in the series are Nightmare in Pink, A Purple Place for Dying, and The Quick Red Fox. There are 21 in total.
McGee is not exactly a private detective; he is a retriever of lost things. A friend describes his work thus: "if X has something valuable and Y comes along and takes it away from him, and there is absolutely no way in the world X can ever get it back, then you come along and make a deal with X to get it back, and keep half. Then you just... live on that until it starts to run out."
My interest in the crime and detective genres has mostly been in the earlier stuff, especially the 19th century, so this came as quite a shock: intense, brutal, sexual. The villain isn't trying to take over the world or unleash nuclear catastrophe; he is mostly an abuser of women. But it is the second greatest achievement of this novel that by the end this comparatively "small-time" bad guy has taken on nearly mythic proportions, becoming almost demonic in his evil vitality and seeming indestructibility. The memory of him will linger like a bad taste long after most world-destroying movie villains have faded. You will fear meeting someone like him in real life, and believe you could.
The greatest achievement of the novel is of course its hero and narrator, Travis McGee. He's one of those highly intelligent, perceptive, tough, compassionate, opinionated, independent heroes with an eye for the ladies, who have an eye for him right back. What sets him apart from the herd is his great narrative voice, at least equal to that other great first person detective Philip Marlowe. In many novels description seems a necessary evil, but the descriptive passages here are a delight, and would be well worth reading in themselves even if there wasn't an intense, exciting, sweaty-palmed thriller attached to them. Like all the best writing, his is concise, precise, and able to find just the right detail to establish a character or place.
Book Review: A treasure from the past...
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm an avid reader of mysteries and I thought I had a basic knowledge of all the prolific writers (even though I haven't sampled all their works). But when a friend recommended John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series, it wasn't even on my radar screen. I started this series with the first book, The Deep Blue Good-By, and was completely blown away!
Travis McGee is a combination of a Mickey Spillane and a Dashiell Hammett character. McGee is a beach bum who lives on the houseboat, cruises chicks, enjoys the good life, and does as little work as possible. When the money runs out, he acts as a modern day Robin Hood-helping those who have been swindled recover their losses (for a percentage, or course). But what makes McGee so much fun is that he is a lovable rake with an astute sense of the world and the people around him, which sometimes borders on brilliance. Having attending the University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse and Harvard, MacDonald is no slouch, either. Some of McGee's musings include:
"A woman who does not guard and treasure herself cannot be of much value to anyone else. They become a pretty little convenience, like a guest towel."
and
"A man with a credit card is in hock to his own image of himself."
The plot is fast paced, and will keep you turning pages as quickly as possible. And while McGee seems to solve at least part of the mystery, the ending isn't entirely happy. The Deep Blue Good-By is definitely a book with an edge. While written in the early 1960's, this story could have been written today except for the absence of cell phones and computers.
The only reason I gave The Deep Blue Good-By four stars instead of five is that at 144 pages, it is just a little light. But I am happy to have discovered this entertaining series, and have already started the second book, Nightmare in Pink.