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April Evil
An odd assortment of criminals and the woman who loves one of them are setting up for a crime.
191 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published April 12, 1986
111 people are currently reading
246 people want to read
About the author
John D. MacDonald
570 books1,382 followersJohn D. MacDonald was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, and educated at the Universities of Pennsylvania, Syracuse and Harvard, where he took an MBA in 1939. During WW2, he rose to the rank of Colonel, and while serving in the Army and in the Far East, sent a short story to his wife for sale, successfully. He served in the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations. After the war, he decided to try writing for a year, to see if he could make a living. Over 500 short stories and 70 novels resulted, including 21 Travis McGee novels.
Following complications of an earlier heart bypass operation, MacDonald slipped into a coma on December 10 and died at age 70, on December 28, 1986, in St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was survived by his wife Dorothy (1911-1989) and a son, Maynard.
In the years since his death MacDonald has been praised by authors as diverse as Stephen King, Spider Robinson, Jimmy Buffett, Kingsley Amis and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Thirty-three years after his passing the Travis McGee novels are still in print.
Following complications of an earlier heart bypass operation, MacDonald slipped into a coma on December 10 and died at age 70, on December 28, 1986, in St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was survived by his wife Dorothy (1911-1989) and a son, Maynard.
In the years since his death MacDonald has been praised by authors as diverse as Stephen King, Spider Robinson, Jimmy Buffett, Kingsley Amis and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Thirty-three years after his passing the Travis McGee novels are still in print.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
March 19, 2025
From 1956
An assortment of thieves come to Flamingo, Florida, hoping to steal the money of a retired physician.
As usual,John D. piles on characters, often going into dramatic detail about their lives. Mostly this is interesting. He also, as usual, shows narratives of the good guys and the bad guys.
The scene where Sally, loot less, tries to drive away from the robbery just to save her own life (which she doesn’t) is quite striking and dramatic.
An assortment of thieves come to Flamingo, Florida, hoping to steal the money of a retired physician.
As usual,John D. piles on characters, often going into dramatic detail about their lives. Mostly this is interesting. He also, as usual, shows narratives of the good guys and the bad guys.
The scene where Sally, loot less, tries to drive away from the robbery just to save her own life (which she doesn’t) is quite striking and dramatic.
July 23, 2021
Best known for his Travis McGee series, MacDonald spent the Fifties putting out crime novel after crime novel, all of which are well worth reading. April Evil, set in a small Florida coastal town, back when Florida still had small towns, is about greed and larceny and lustfulness. An old doctor is set in his ways and keeps millions in cash in a safe in his closet and the whole town suspects it, including a gang of hoodlums come in from Chicago, all set to take it the hard way, his distant relatives who are sponging it off him one dollar at a time, and his nearby relatives who can’t wait for him to die and wanted him declared cuckoo and locked away. Of course, typical of these novels, all their paths cross in the end and that end ain’t all that pretty.
The beauty and wonder in this early MacDonald novel is not so much in the plot, but in the bevy of characters he carefully creates and launches out upon an unsuspecting world. The hard-case hoodlum and the dumb blonde he drags along for kicks, the one who went to Hollywood to become a star, but never had the gift for acting so hooked up with a bunch of hoodlums in Chicago. He’s determined never to go back to the prison he broke out of. The safecracker who joins them. And the psychopath who just loves killing though he is warned not to leave a trail of too many bodies this time.
But that’s just the hoodlums. The folks in this town are quite a bunch. There’s the used car dealer and his trampy wife who sunbathes au natural while her car is delivered by the dealership salesman. The rich dealer who then loses his shirt in a poker game while the wife is out cavorting and stirring up trouble. The kid next door to the hoodlums wants to play private eye. The lawyer who writes up the rich doctor’s will used to be going with the auto dealer’s wife. And so on and so on. They are all interconnected. The story is just rich in characters, each of whom seem so unique and so desperate in their own slightly offbeat ways.
The beauty and wonder in this early MacDonald novel is not so much in the plot, but in the bevy of characters he carefully creates and launches out upon an unsuspecting world. The hard-case hoodlum and the dumb blonde he drags along for kicks, the one who went to Hollywood to become a star, but never had the gift for acting so hooked up with a bunch of hoodlums in Chicago. He’s determined never to go back to the prison he broke out of. The safecracker who joins them. And the psychopath who just loves killing though he is warned not to leave a trail of too many bodies this time.
But that’s just the hoodlums. The folks in this town are quite a bunch. There’s the used car dealer and his trampy wife who sunbathes au natural while her car is delivered by the dealership salesman. The rich dealer who then loses his shirt in a poker game while the wife is out cavorting and stirring up trouble. The kid next door to the hoodlums wants to play private eye. The lawyer who writes up the rich doctor’s will used to be going with the auto dealer’s wife. And so on and so on. They are all interconnected. The story is just rich in characters, each of whom seem so unique and so desperate in their own slightly offbeat ways.
April 15, 2019
It's April 2019 and I just finished APRIL EVIL for the 2nd time. This is one of the earliest non-Travis McGee novels by MacDonald that I read many years ago. It's a good one from the mid 50s where wherein MacDonald puts a small cast of criminals on a caper in Flamingo Florida. The book describes Flamingo as a town of 12 thousand located on the west coast of Florida. This is the kind of novel that the crime, a planned heist of a couple million dollars in cash from a reclusive old man's estate, is the means by which MacDonald can wrap a novel around the relationships of the main characters. There is also the sociopath in the mix who is looking forward to killing at least a few of them before the last page is turned. This is a good example of a MacDonald standalone that exposes a small town of vice, corruption and bravery. And a great example of a novel that knows how to not get boring.
July 6, 2018
Written in 1955, several years before the first Travis McGee novel, April Evil is classic noir. Set in MacDonald's beloved Florida, it contains a terrific cast of characters drawn by greed. Old Dr. Tomlin is a rich eccentric who never believed in banks, and has amassed a fortune in his home safe. A young punk named Preston and his girlfriend claim some sort of distant relationship. Tomlin takes a liking to the girl as the daughter he never had, and accepts the two in his home. This does not please local frustrated wife Lenora Parks, who is married to Tomlin's great nephew and feels entitled to the inheritance. Trouble ensues as Lenora schemes with her husband's shady employee Mooney to have the old man committed. Meanwhile, a trio of gangsters and a moll get wind of the fortune and hit town, hoping to clean house. To keep up appearances they rent a nice house next to mild mannered Ben Piersall and his family. Ben's young son reads the true crime magazines under the covers, and thinks one of the gangsters looks a little familiar....
There's plenty more going on here, but you get the drift. It's a a lot fun to read as the characters converge and the story builds to a climax. The reader gets plenty of MacDonald's not so subtle commentary on greed, sleaze and moral depravity that finds its way into all walks of life. MacDonald's novels are addictive, and I actually liked this one more than a few of the celebrated Travis McGee titles I've read so far. This is a good place to start.
There's plenty more going on here, but you get the drift. It's a a lot fun to read as the characters converge and the story builds to a climax. The reader gets plenty of MacDonald's not so subtle commentary on greed, sleaze and moral depravity that finds its way into all walks of life. MacDonald's novels are addictive, and I actually liked this one more than a few of the celebrated Travis McGee titles I've read so far. This is a good place to start.
July 28, 2025
I don't know why, but if you set a criminal caper story in a small Florida town, you have a perfect locale for evil. Now, I've been in Florida several times. I even lived in Lake Worth for a year early in my life. Reading the novels of Paul Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, and John D. MacDonald have introduced me to some of the most dyed-in-the-wool villains I have ever encountered in the literature.
April Evil is about two groups zeroing in on the rich cash holdings of an aging doctor. The scarier group includes a young assassin named Ronnie Crown who is easily one of the best villains in all of MacDonald's work.
Over the years, I have read most of the Travis McGee "color" novels and am now turning to the non-Travis titles. There's some good stuff there.
April Evil is about two groups zeroing in on the rich cash holdings of an aging doctor. The scarier group includes a young assassin named Ronnie Crown who is easily one of the best villains in all of MacDonald's work.
Over the years, I have read most of the Travis McGee "color" novels and am now turning to the non-Travis titles. There's some good stuff there.
May 21, 2018
A fantastic example of MacDonald in full force. Easily my favourite book by this masterly writer. Characterizations are brilliant and the plotting is ticky-tock tight. I've read a lot of the Travis McGees and went looking for some of McDonald's other work. Hit the jackpot here. Naturally the language and attitude are somewhat dated, but as crime-based pulp noir goes, I can't imagine it getting much better than this. Loved this book.
April 10, 2023
Good read for April! This story is as tight as a harp string. The pieces of this three pronged story fit together like a 1000 piece puzzle. I burned through this book because A) it’s fairly short and B) so well written I didn’t want to put it down. This is a classic pre-McGee JDM novel and such a treat. The ending is a bit neat and tidy but so satisfying I didn’t mind a bit.
March 24, 2025
100%
Wow, that was one heck of a book.
It has it all: slow-burn suspense (far, far from the usual ham-fisted variety), lots of varied and believable characters, unpredictable, and an unusually good ending. A remarkably good ending -- not too short and not too long.
The story starts right off in a town JDM calls Flamingo, Florida. There is a little sorta ghost town called Flamingo, way down in Monroe Co. and most of us locals have been there. But the story's town has a population of 12,000, a causeway, and at least one barrier island. JDM spent much of his life on the Gulf Coast and he'd have known that the real Flamingo has maybe 50 residents, no causeway, and no barrier islands. This bugged me at first, because the little of his stuff I've read was typically accurate.
From the various highways, road names, traveling times, and geography it didn't take long to triangulate which real Gulf Coast town he had used as a model for his Flamingo. I'm gonna keep that to myself, because it figures into that unusually good ending. I gotta say that again: the ending was better than any I can recall offhand. Up there with Norris's McTeague.
So, for me, there were two first-rate fun things about this book: (1) Figuring out where it took place and (2) the outstanding ending.
The latter should be enough for anyone. If you're such an old pro that you can see this ending coming, then you can do something that I cannot.
PS Another blessing (after all the Scott Phillips porn I've been reading) is that the porn is of the very softest core. First of all, only one guy is even vaguely a Harvey Weinstein, and best of all, it's the kind where a bottle of wine is opened, you see a breeze ruffle the moonlit curtains, and then they're smoking cigarettes -- that's it, and that's also about as long as it lasts. None of the "hey babe, that was the best head I've had in nearly a week and the best anal I've had all day" sort of thing I'd come to expect.
Wow, that was one heck of a book.
It has it all: slow-burn suspense (far, far from the usual ham-fisted variety), lots of varied and believable characters, unpredictable, and an unusually good ending. A remarkably good ending -- not too short and not too long.
The story starts right off in a town JDM calls Flamingo, Florida. There is a little sorta ghost town called Flamingo, way down in Monroe Co. and most of us locals have been there. But the story's town has a population of 12,000, a causeway, and at least one barrier island. JDM spent much of his life on the Gulf Coast and he'd have known that the real Flamingo has maybe 50 residents, no causeway, and no barrier islands. This bugged me at first, because the little of his stuff I've read was typically accurate.
From the various highways, road names, traveling times, and geography it didn't take long to triangulate which real Gulf Coast town he had used as a model for his Flamingo. I'm gonna keep that to myself, because it figures into that unusually good ending. I gotta say that again: the ending was better than any I can recall offhand. Up there with Norris's McTeague.
So, for me, there were two first-rate fun things about this book: (1) Figuring out where it took place and (2) the outstanding ending.
The latter should be enough for anyone. If you're such an old pro that you can see this ending coming, then you can do something that I cannot.
PS Another blessing (after all the Scott Phillips porn I've been reading) is that the porn is of the very softest core. First of all, only one guy is even vaguely a Harvey Weinstein, and best of all, it's the kind where a bottle of wine is opened, you see a breeze ruffle the moonlit curtains, and then they're smoking cigarettes -- that's it, and that's also about as long as it lasts. None of the "hey babe, that was the best head I've had in nearly a week and the best anal I've had all day" sort of thing I'd come to expect.
April 20, 2022
My second April book with the month in the title, I read it years ago but remembered nothing about it.
Is there honor among thieves? Maybe among the dead ones. A rich eccentric old doctor, who keeps his millions in cash at his big stone house, the stories and rumors of which attract low-lifes like a bleeding fish attracts sharks. And, hey, if I kill my companions I get it all for myself!
1950’s crime noir, a fun ride from our man John D. 😊
Is there honor among thieves? Maybe among the dead ones. A rich eccentric old doctor, who keeps his millions in cash at his big stone house, the stories and rumors of which attract low-lifes like a bleeding fish attracts sharks. And, hey, if I kill my companions I get it all for myself!
1950’s crime noir, a fun ride from our man John D. 😊
May 13, 2025
5++ Now I see why there is so much praise for John D. MacDonald. A noir gem.
July 9, 2021
Tough one to review. The attitudes towards women in this novel are practically prehistoric. But then, it's a crime novel set in the mid fifties and featuring a bunch of brainless thugs and a psychopath, so what did I expect? When I take that into consideration, the story becomes somewhat more acceptable and realistic. That said, there are some unlikely scenarios in this book that could only occur in pulp fiction.
In the end, MacDonald's above average writing is what saves this story for me. And the satisfying fact that all of the bad guys die horrible deaths.
In the end, MacDonald's above average writing is what saves this story for me. And the satisfying fact that all of the bad guys die horrible deaths.
October 22, 2023
April Evil is almost too perfect as a noir thriller. We expect our noir protagonists to begin in a desperate situation and spiral deeper and deeper into the abyss. In April Evil it isn’t just the protagonist to whom we are first introduced who has the problem of existential quicksand (mostly of his own making), but many of the characters are also grasping at straws to get our of the mire in which they are drowning. Indeed, the problems accumulate so fast and furiously (no pun regarding a series of movies intended) that it is almost comical in the dark style of Westlake, for example.
In terms of my favorite part of the book, my favorite sequence was when a minor character is accused of “playing God” because he was being both judgmental and merciful to a person who had committed a criminal act. Later, he experiences his own crisis (though not of his making) and senses it is poetic justice for his judgmental action toward the other character. Sorry I can’t be more specific, this character’s arc is so intricately woven through that of the major plot arcs that it would spoil everything to name names.
There is also an almost throw-away description of one character that caught my fancy, the description not the character. “He was a jarring element. He did not fit. He spoiled the perfection of her. He was a smear of crayon across a good painting, a crack in a symphonic record. He soiled the girl.” (p. 159)
The set-up seems almost banal. An old, eccentric doctor felt swindled by a bank failure early in his career and, though he had made a fortune in Florida real estate, refused to keep it in the bank. Not only do we read of the typical rivalry among relatives but there is not one but two plots to swindle the old doctor our of his money. One of the plots goes interestingly awry, threatening to ruin the conspirators in one way, and the other plot is a disaster with the inevitable fatal consequences for some.
April Evil is not the kind of book that has you rooting for any specific character. It’s the kind of book that has you keep reading to see how each character is going to get what she or he deserves. April Evil is a mixed bag for those who like to see justice triumph but it is a fascinating string of events to explore.
In terms of my favorite part of the book, my favorite sequence was when a minor character is accused of “playing God” because he was being both judgmental and merciful to a person who had committed a criminal act. Later, he experiences his own crisis (though not of his making) and senses it is poetic justice for his judgmental action toward the other character. Sorry I can’t be more specific, this character’s arc is so intricately woven through that of the major plot arcs that it would spoil everything to name names.
There is also an almost throw-away description of one character that caught my fancy, the description not the character. “He was a jarring element. He did not fit. He spoiled the perfection of her. He was a smear of crayon across a good painting, a crack in a symphonic record. He soiled the girl.” (p. 159)
The set-up seems almost banal. An old, eccentric doctor felt swindled by a bank failure early in his career and, though he had made a fortune in Florida real estate, refused to keep it in the bank. Not only do we read of the typical rivalry among relatives but there is not one but two plots to swindle the old doctor our of his money. One of the plots goes interestingly awry, threatening to ruin the conspirators in one way, and the other plot is a disaster with the inevitable fatal consequences for some.
April Evil is not the kind of book that has you rooting for any specific character. It’s the kind of book that has you keep reading to see how each character is going to get what she or he deserves. April Evil is a mixed bag for those who like to see justice triumph but it is a fascinating string of events to explore.
July 22, 2025
While not a big fan of the Travis McGee stories I really enjoy MacDonald's early stories. This is no exception. The plot is kind of complicated but never confusing. It revolves around an wealthy older man who, because of an earlier bad experience with a bank during the depression, decides to keep his million dollar fortune stored in a safe in his home,. He lives in a small town in 1956 Gulf Coast Florida. While his neighbors are all pretty sure that he is actually keeping that much money in his home, it isn't a well known outside the confines of the town.
But eventually someone is going to decide that there is enough truth to the rumor to make it a worthwhile effort to steal the money. A mismatched gang of 3 men and a woman come to Florida to do just that. Things get complicated because one of the gang has also been given the job to whack one of the other gang members for unrelated reasons. Things get more complicated when a relative who, although they are in the wil, gets tired of waiting for the old man to die and begins their own plan of planting false info to imply the old man is crazy. Of course these two plans are taking place at the same time.
The pacing of the first half of the novel is slow with no action but that is more than made up for by MacDonald's ability to create and develop the characters involved. You slowly get to know the history and inner workings of the main characters and understand how their make-up drives their actions and planning. The people and events all build toward the climax in believable ways that keep you immersed in the novel. I think I woud have given this 5 stars except I wasn't completely satisfied with the final outcome for one of the criminals. I realize the intended irony but I was hoping for something with more action.
But eventually someone is going to decide that there is enough truth to the rumor to make it a worthwhile effort to steal the money. A mismatched gang of 3 men and a woman come to Florida to do just that. Things get complicated because one of the gang has also been given the job to whack one of the other gang members for unrelated reasons. Things get more complicated when a relative who, although they are in the wil, gets tired of waiting for the old man to die and begins their own plan of planting false info to imply the old man is crazy. Of course these two plans are taking place at the same time.
The pacing of the first half of the novel is slow with no action but that is more than made up for by MacDonald's ability to create and develop the characters involved. You slowly get to know the history and inner workings of the main characters and understand how their make-up drives their actions and planning. The people and events all build toward the climax in believable ways that keep you immersed in the novel. I think I woud have given this 5 stars except I wasn't completely satisfied with the final outcome for one of the criminals. I realize the intended irony but I was hoping for something with more action.
January 11, 2022
Excellent noir novel. Better than many of MacDonald's Travis McGee novels. Everything needed for a classic noir with greed, jealousy, desperate actors, pure evil characters and ones to whom life just was not kind.
January 17, 2025
Okay
It told the story well. Just not much of a story to me. It wasn't my thing. I expected more.
It told the story well. Just not much of a story to me. It wasn't my thing. I expected more.
August 24, 2025
Abbandonato
January 25, 2023
MacDonald populates this novel with one of the most interesting casts of characters in crime fiction. It seems as if every character, male and female, are carefully drawn and provided with his or her own personal motivation. This is perhaps a good thing because the majority of the book is a set up for the big heist scene, which sadly, is over far too quickly.
The plot surrounds an eccentric old retired doctor, sitting in his large house with a tons of money, with a big stone wall protecting him from evil, or so he thinks. Into town, one by one, is a team of villains who've heard about the money he's keeping in his house. They begin to plan a home invasion robbery (written in the 1950's before the term was no prevalent)...
The doctor has allowed a distant relation and his wife to move into his house. He does not have a lot of respect for the man, but cultivates a relationship with the man's young wife. He becomes something of a mentor to her and she lights up his life. However, there is a problem. He has a nephew that he likes about as much as he does the distant relative. He dislikes the nephew's wife even more and he has reason to feel that way. She has contrived to make him seem to be suffering from dementia. Her plot brings in a shady car salesman who works for her husband's failing dealership. He has attempted to solve his financial problems by gambling, giving a hot check to an acquaintance. This puts the couple on a collision course with one another, in one of the most interesting scenes where they collide and realize what kind of nasty people they really are.
One of the robbers is on the most wanted list, and a nosey little boy manages to recognize him and enter their circle of danger and intrigue.
This is indeed a character driven story-- when we get to the action it unfolds quickly and in some ways seems a bit short. The biggest bad guy is an assasin and the resolution of his portion of the story is very satisfying.
The plot surrounds an eccentric old retired doctor, sitting in his large house with a tons of money, with a big stone wall protecting him from evil, or so he thinks. Into town, one by one, is a team of villains who've heard about the money he's keeping in his house. They begin to plan a home invasion robbery (written in the 1950's before the term was no prevalent)...
The doctor has allowed a distant relation and his wife to move into his house. He does not have a lot of respect for the man, but cultivates a relationship with the man's young wife. He becomes something of a mentor to her and she lights up his life. However, there is a problem. He has a nephew that he likes about as much as he does the distant relative. He dislikes the nephew's wife even more and he has reason to feel that way. She has contrived to make him seem to be suffering from dementia. Her plot brings in a shady car salesman who works for her husband's failing dealership. He has attempted to solve his financial problems by gambling, giving a hot check to an acquaintance. This puts the couple on a collision course with one another, in one of the most interesting scenes where they collide and realize what kind of nasty people they really are.
One of the robbers is on the most wanted list, and a nosey little boy manages to recognize him and enter their circle of danger and intrigue.
This is indeed a character driven story-- when we get to the action it unfolds quickly and in some ways seems a bit short. The biggest bad guy is an assasin and the resolution of his portion of the story is very satisfying.
July 9, 2021
Half a heist story, half an adult drama: all of it done to perfection that fans of John D. MacDonald will be familiar with. Like Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, there's not all that much plot in this story and yet it races right along. That's a damn good magic trick, my friends. What I take away the most is how well MacDonald knows these characters ranging from all walks of life. It's even more impressive the way he kept showing us people we'd recognize in book after book after book. Some day, science will be able to combine the DNA of MacDonald and Stephen King and we'll have the Great American Popular Novelist. Until then, we have so many fun novels to read while we wait. If that's not a reason to grateful, I don't know what is.
March 28, 2024
An escaped prisoner and his cohorts arrive in this small Florida town to do some evil. An old local doctor having had bad luck with banks keeps a fortune in a safe at his home. The bad guys learn of this and plan to rob him. Meanwhile a greedy wife of a relative of the doctor also has her sights on the money and convinces an accomplice to help prove he is mentally unfit. Also introduced is lawyer and his family trying to protect the doctor and some distance relatives of the doctor who arrive on his doorstep. The story and the characters are okay as long as you can tolerate the usual meandering thoughts of the author on the declining state of Florida and its people.
June 1, 2020
Interesting-enough setup, but poorly written (monotonously short sentences) with implausible character behavior. For example, a rich miser has amassed millions over decades, but leaves it all to a very distantly-related young woman who appears on his doorstep randomly. Why does he do this? Because she gives him profound insights into art, like this one:
"I don't dig Bartok. I mean I think I see what he's trying to do, but I don't think I like it."
Or this one:
"Maybe I can see what this Hemingway is doing, Doctor Paul."
"I don't dig Bartok. I mean I think I see what he's trying to do, but I don't think I like it."
Or this one:
"Maybe I can see what this Hemingway is doing, Doctor Paul."
August 14, 2020
The character study in the buildup of this story is fantastic. As the story starts coming together, the anticipation builds. This JDM 50's Crime Fiction tale is not lacking in the profound observation in human nature of which he was so adept. The only problem is the climax could not possibly meet the expectations created in the excellent set up of this novel. This does not have the all hell breaks loose final confrontation one might find in a Travis McGee. However, it works very well in the context of noir fiction. The damned... and the redeemed.
June 24, 2025
Flamingo, Fla meets intrigue and violence
Welcome to the Sunbelt, circa 1955. This is MacDonaldland, where women are stolid family managers and broken-down platinum-haired mistakes, and men wear their bent morality like a loud sport shirt when it’s happy hour in the cocktail lounge.
The drama MacDonald builds always tests his characters’ fiber. It breaks some while even the heroic characters come away at least bent slightly in tender places.
“April Evil” is pure John D. It’s a keeper.
Welcome to the Sunbelt, circa 1955. This is MacDonaldland, where women are stolid family managers and broken-down platinum-haired mistakes, and men wear their bent morality like a loud sport shirt when it’s happy hour in the cocktail lounge.
The drama MacDonald builds always tests his characters’ fiber. It breaks some while even the heroic characters come away at least bent slightly in tender places.
“April Evil” is pure John D. It’s a keeper.
July 1, 2019
Truly creates a sense of evil invading ordinary lives
A story about some drifter/thieves trying to steal a million dollars from a retired doctor foolish enough to keep his money in a safe in his home. Many lives are impacted by the theft and that is the evil of the title. Not a gripping thriller but still drew me in.
A story about some drifter/thieves trying to steal a million dollars from a retired doctor foolish enough to keep his money in a safe in his home. Many lives are impacted by the theft and that is the evil of the title. Not a gripping thriller but still drew me in.
May 4, 2020
Everyone needs to read this book from 1955. A very exciting and suspenseful book. A study in human behaviour, right and wrong, who we all are. I love this author’s writing style. Apart from the violence against women that seems part of the stories from the 50’s, this is my favourite book by him so far, of the one’s I’ve inherited.
September 2, 2023
Chilling
As a long time fan of MacDonald, I enjoy his unconnected works. His analysis of human nature is scalpel exact. And the change to being aware of the evil side, could be us.
As a long time fan of MacDonald, I enjoy his unconnected works. His analysis of human nature is scalpel exact. And the change to being aware of the evil side, could be us.
May 21, 2025
Could not put it down
This one was new to me and it did not disappoint. I tried to leave my reading but could not do it! Every book of his is so rich in character details that you can feel their états d'âmes. You can never miss with this author.
This one was new to me and it did not disappoint. I tried to leave my reading but could not do it! Every book of his is so rich in character details that you can feel their états d'âmes. You can never miss with this author.
March 5, 2018
Not one of my favorites I've read during my excursion through JD's books, a little darker than I like. But hey, I did finish it.
March 14, 2021
If you like cynical portrayals of small town citizens, MacDonald is your author. Sure, it's dated, and the characters are somewhat stereotyped, but it keeps your interest.
November 4, 2021
A bit of a slug from John D. What started out well ended up dragging at the end. A less than spectacular crime novel.
May 26, 2023
Enjoyable. Not especially original. Will read more.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews