Slam the Big Door

by John D. MacDonald

Novel. A very nice, clean vintage collector's item. Number #T2651. Originally 75 cents.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Thriller, Crime, 20th Century, Noir, Mystery Thriller

Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

John 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.

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Notwithstanding the strange and lurid amalgam of glamour and trash in the more widely read Travis McGee series, this is one of the BEST novels by John MacDonald, this time on the seedy, unspoken details of Florida real estate. It’ll Open your Eyes to the REAL inner workings of big business.

Now, I’m no ingénu, but I was much more of that ilk when I started reading it. And reading it was analogous to riding a foaming Bronco outta the starting gate at the Calgary Stampede. No guff.

I had to hang on for dear life.

But now I see it was part and parcel of my purgatorial prep for Heaven.

Unlike Much-Afraid in the fizzled Christian novel, Hind’s Feet in High Places. For in reality, all the mystical privations of Much-Afraid don’t amount to a hill of beans. Only hard knocks get you to Heaven!

AKA Waking Up.

My friend Tony sees no hope in the modern world. That’s why he’s my close friend. No one else sees our fallen world so vividly and ingloriously, aside from my Forever Wife!

(Oh, and BTW don't forget to check out Tony's hail-Mary spine-tingler of a sci-fi page tuner, The NJ-12 Biosphere!)

The real world hurts.

It means Business.

As does this wonderfully tell-all novel.

It will Wake You Up.

FIVE FULL STARS.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slam the Big Door

MacDonald’s 1960 novel Slam the Big Door (originally published as Gold Medal # 961) is set in a rapidly changing Florida as the idyllic Keys are being turned over to developers and each would-be real estate tycoon thinks he can develop whatever he wants without paying the price to the local warlords. The story, which feels in many ways, like a precursor to his Travis McGee series with a white knight seemingly riding to the rescue and trying to keep the forces of evil at bay.

Troy Jamison and Mike Rodenska met in the Pacific theater a couple of times throughout the war before settling back down to married life in the States. Mike is the more stable of the two and a reporter by trade and during the war. He gets Troy started in an advertising career and never forgets Troy’s declaration that he wants more than his fair share. Troy is one of those firecrackers who wants it all and is never satisfied. And one day he blows his top and it all comes crashing down – the marriage, the career, everything – and Mike is putty in the hands of a professional user, a woman who is like a witch who just ropes him in and then doesn’t give a damn as long as she gets her kicks.

We don’t know whether Troy’s midlife crisis is PTSD from the war and the terrible things he can never forget or something twisted in him, but Mike rescues him and Troy somehow picks himself up and starts over with a new wife and a new career. Mike goes to visit the couple in the Florida Keys, thinking he’s the one now who needs rescuing after his wife dies and he can’t cope with the emptiness.

The thing is though once again Mike plays the rescuer to Troy, the seemingly successful real estate developer. And it doesn’t take Mike long to realize the emperor has no clothes. Troy’s marriage to Mary is bitter. The development is a bust and they are going to lose the fancy beach estate, the boat, the sports cars, and more. Troy is once again lost to alcohol and PTSD and it all is coming crashing down in disaster and perhaps not even Mike can ride to the rescue.

What MacDonald does so cleverly is show bit by bit how phoney and empty the country club and yacht set is. And how fragile decency really is in a world of vultures and sharks circling around, ready to chew the still breathing corpse to bits.

There are a couple of points MacDonald opens up that could have been pursued further as to the nature of evil, but the choice was to focus on Troy’s rise and fall.

This is one of MacDonald’s character-driven novels that are hard to classify. While not exactly crime fiction, it contains elements here that give a flavor of such novels, particularly in the portrayals of people with seemingly no conscience.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going out of town, so I don't really have time to do a longer review (which this book deserves). STBD is one of MacDonald's stand alone novels (which some consider his best work). I recently scored a bunch of them at a used book store that I frequent. No one, with the possible exception of perhaps Kem Nunn, does beach noir like MacDonald (and Nunn is West Coast). I'm not even totally sure whether to call these efforts noir, since genre seems too restrictive for what MacDonald is trying to do. The setting is late 50s Florida Gulf coast, with 40 something widower and ex-newspaper man Mike Rodenska watching Mary Jamieson, the wife of an old Marine buddy, gracefully swimming. Mary, and her husband, Troy (a Florida builder), have invited Mike down from New York following the death of Mike's beloved wife, "Buttons." Mike, being ex-newsman observant, soon picks up on the fragility of the marriage. Troy is drinking too much and starting to disappear at odd times. His step daughter, newly divorced Debbie Ann, is bored and looking for conscious free fun, while Mary looks like she has a lot on her mind. Throw in lots of drinking, heat, shady real estate shenanigans, Troy's trashy old girlfriend showing up with her beat buddy "Birdy," and you've got a toxic situation going south quickly. One extra wrinkle that I enjoyed was Troy's seeming PTSD from WW 2. MacDonald's insightful (and compassionate) speculation on Troy's broken psychological condition, and the self-destructive cycle he's caught in, is impressive. MacDonald is not so compassionate when it comes to the likes of Troy's girlfriend, Jerranna, and her muscle bound pimp, Birdy, who are amoral, even evil, and representative of some sort of expanding national decay. Debbie Ann isn't much better. As some have pointed out, MacDonald can lay the judgmental stuff on pretty thick. But it didn't seem to bother me, since he supplies such an excellent sentence by sentence foundation. (This book, looking back now over 50 years, also works well as a revealing Mad Men like cultural time capsule.) I also liked how MacDonald revealed the Why of the title. Really cool and really dark. Highly recommended.

[Michael Sorensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply one of the greatest books by an American Author this century...

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The theme of this book written in 1960 is ethics. Ethics in business, in war, and in marriage. The author writes with a lyrical style, his descriptions are superb even in describing the lead up to and the resulting carnage of a head on collision, you are in awe of his reporting skills. However, I am horrified by his lack of understanding of women and his double standards for the participants in an extramarital affair. A 42 year old man has sex with the daughter of his second wife. His best friend is angry about this but puts the blame on the pretty step-daughter. The attitude of the man, his best friend and I assume, the author John D. MacDonald, is evident in the following quote: “You are Godless. A reincarnation of the same scented bitch that has appeared and reappeared in history. I thought they were evil women. Consciously evil. I didn’t know they were just empty. It’s kind of disappointing in a way. It takes the drama out of it. They weren’t overthrowing kings and princes and kingdoms out of malice after all. They were just satisfying a little clitoral itch, and when things started falling down they probably looked around and said, “Who, me?”

The author John D. MacDonald is of a different era. If he were alive today he would be 99 years old. I read an ebook edition of Slam the Big Door but posted the original cover to illustrate how women were depicted by mystery and crime writers even as late as the 1960s.

[Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of JDM's better works. MacDonald is a 1st-person narrator author, but in this book he uses a very 3rd-person limited POV for the main character, Mike Rodenska, for most of the story. The problem is, he can't quite get away from his 1st-person inclinations. He'll start a paragraph with "...,Mike thought." and then write the rest of the paragraph Travis McGee style. Later in the book, he doesn't even bother with the "...Mike thought" intro; the POV just switches from 1st to 3rd intermittently.
Makes for some sloppy writing from the great master. The story dragged in places, and I didn't like/hate/feel sorry for the characters I was supposed to like/hate/feel sorry for.

[Tracy P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dean Koontz's intro. was such as a treat (as I am a Koontz super-fan) and served to ditto my sentiment that Mr. John MacDonald is one of the best American writers of our time. I will be revisiting this one often!

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

This 67-year-old book, basically about damaged men coming back from WW2 then being seduced by evil women, deserves a 1 star rating from this perspective. But the structure is good as the plot builds nicely to the end when everyone gets exactly what they deserve, so I added a second star.

[Joe Nicholl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slam the Big Door (1960) by John D. MacDonald, is a stand alone that's a page turner until the half way point where it lost it's way a bit with a bunch of fancy writing (actually there's a lot of that through out the book). But I must admit the novel did right itself near the end for a mostly good strong ending. The book is high on drama and I believe MacDonald was trying out John Updike territory (Rabbit, Run). It's about two WWII friends, one a war corespondent, the other a soldier, who get together fifteen years later in Florida. After meeting up they compare life's bumps and bruises and ups and downs but it's the present where the real drama begins. Through marriages, infidelities, alcoholism and shady business deals the stage (or soap opera) is set for a mostly entertaining read. If you're a John D. MacDonald fan I recommend, if you're new to the author I suggest you start elsewhere like maybe The Crossroads or The End of the Night. -I wanted to point out how many of MacDonald's books are set in the business world which is used as a back drop...in this case real estate...3.5 outta 5.0...I going to officially give it 3 stars...

[Craig Pittman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading John D. MacDonald's series of crime novels about Travis McGee when I was 14, but never got around to his non-McGee books (except for his masterpiece "Condominium") until a few years ago when his adopted hometown of Sarasota was celebrating his 100th birthday. There were too many for me to read them all, though, so I am still slowly working my way through the rest of his massive catalog.

"Slam the Big Door" was, I was told by a JDM scholar, MacDonald's favorite of his non-McGee books, and I can kind of see why. It's not exactly a crime novel, but there's plenty of immorality on display -- lust, greed, envy, sloth, you name it. And by the end, there is blood, and plenty of it. But there's a distinct sense of place and time -- a Florida beach town in 1960 -- and some pretty interesting characters doing interesting things.

The main character is Mike Rodenska, a recently retired newspaperman who's still recovering from losing his wife to a disease. His old war buddy, Troy Jameson, and Troy's gracious second wife Mary, invite him to visit them in Florida so he can recuperate a bit. But when Rodenska arrives, he discovers that something's wrong with Troy, something that's bound to lead to a crack-up, so being a nosy news guy, of course he starts poking around to figure out what's up.

My favorite part of the novel comes when Mike is investigating the status of Troy's floundering subdivision development, meeting a shady rancher who controls everything that moves in local politics and later telling Mary that he's figured out the key to being a successful developer in Florida: "You've got to hate trees."

His descriptions of beach life were so vivid I could almost feel the sand between my toes and the hot glare of the sun reflecting off the water. And with one exception, the characters all came across as three-dimensional and psychologically believable. The crack-up, when it finally happened, was not what I was expecting and afterward I galloped toward the end as fast as I could to see what would happen next.

There are a couple of flaws. The book has not one but two femmes fatale in this story, and one of them -- the one who has a history with Troy -- didn't quite register with me as anything but a plot contrivance, and MacDonald does something weird regarding her appearance when she shows up the second time that kind of threw me off for a bit. The other problem is that a lot of the dialogue comes across as soliloquies rather than an actual conversation. You can get away with that sometimes in fiction, but not quite as much as MacDonald tries to do in this book.

All in all, though, a satisfying read about a bygone era of Florida beach life, and boy howdy, what a great title. When you see what it refers to, you'll go, "Oh, of course."

[Alonzo Church · Rating 2 out of 5]

Research tells me this was McDonald’s favorite among his books. He wrote it for hardback publication, and he wrote it as a straightforward novel, more O’Hara and Cheever than his usual suspense and crime story.

The book, I guess, is McDonald in full — his concerns about Florida and society all going wrong, and hints of the environmentalism that appeared in his later books, are all here, in well written prose. The plot is less good — how a nice guy tries to save a war buddy for the second time.

And, oh the misogyny! McDonald’s view of society going wrong is totally wrapped up in women going wrong. He’s got two female sinkers in this one, one who is the femme fatale of femme fatales who, simply by wandering into the picture, can make a guy teetering on the edge of sanity and decency, take that one extra drink, have that one extra affair, break that one extra commandment, etc etc. The second is more an amateur succubus, though, fittingly, she is the one who kicks off the final disaster. Both of these horrors get the sort of Old Testament justice that suggest an author suffering from an acute case of moral panic.

So, this turns out to be a well written scold by your crazy uncle, who can really spin a good yarn when he wants to, but jeez, some of his ideas are embarrassing. And since the embarrassing ideas are the whole point of the yarn, it just gets to be too much.

[Genevieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

MacDonald is one of my favorite authors because despite his flaws (most of which stem from being a man writing in the 1950s-1960s, and some of which eased as he got older and time moved on a bit), he knows how to write a character. You get such a sense of who his people are, and the time period that they are located in, and the forces moving them. Here a story about old war buddies touches on PTSD, grief, money, greed, small-town life, and above all Florida, with its developers and weathered fishermen and the sun beating down on all of it.

The Travis McGee books are my first love, but MacDonalds stand-alones are often quite excellent as well, and this was a really enjoyable read.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit melodramatic and preachy, somewhat dated in its attitudes toward ladies, a few philosophical asides (pre-Travis McGee stuff). but JDM could spin a first-rate story. Not as noirish as I originally thought it'd be. The Florida setting is jaded and commercialized even in 1960, the publication date. Rich characters, especially the minor ones.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always, MacDonald's characters rock.

[Barbara Nutting · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not his best book!! He has used exposure of the the Florida land scams,construction problems and corruption more deftly in many of his other novels.

[wally · Rating 3 out of 5]

saturday morning, 20 dec 14

#11 from macdonald for me. just finished The Drowner, a story that has some flaws, still an okay story...and the flaws make it special. people make mistakes...they don't always get it right...or something is off. and now i'm on this one.
slam the big door (1960)

story begins:
the big house--the home of troy and mary jamison--was of stone and slate and glass and redwood--with contrived tiltings and flarings of its egret-white roof. it stood on the bay side of the north end of riley key, overlooking the florida gulf, partially screened from occasional slow traffic on the lumpy, sand-and-shell road that ran the seven-mile length of the key by a grove of ancient live oaks, so gnarled and twisted, so picturesquely hung with fright-wigs of spanish moss that mike rodenska, walking across to the gulf beach in the sunlight of an april sunday morning, had the pleasant fancy that the oaks had been designed by the same architext who had contributed the light and spaciousness and a certain indefinable self-consciousness to the jamison home. the architect had drawn the trees and subcontracted them to an artistic oak-gnarler.

whew! do i want to continue? we'll let it pass...onward and upward.

time place scene settings
*florida...on the gulf of mexico side...riley key, south of tampa...which...i'm not sure is a "real" place. you do not always get a sense of a definitive place in macdonald stories, one that exists in the real world...although you do get a sense that the story takes place near 'real' places. like ravenna county...i do not believe there is a ravenna county in florida...could be...don't believe so.
*naha bay (the world war 2)...had the sense this is a...more tropical place...and though maybe it is alaska in the real world...perhaps this too is a fictional place only.
*1959
*beach, pool, cabana settings...
*past...settings from the war...bars, bays
*horseshoe bay estates...this deal that troy is in...over his head...in danger of losing his arse
*melford school in vermont...mike's two boys are in this school....providing him w/a break, something his dying wife, buttons, set up
*new york...troy and his first wife spent time here in nyc...she is now in colorado
*ravenna key, florida
*purdy elmarr's 1200 acre ranch 35 miles from the key...on the myaka river
*state road 982, state road 565, tamiami trail
*a 4-business section that has been there...because of zoning...they have lost out on value...whitey's fish camp, shelder's cottages...wilbur's sundries & lunch, and red's b-29 bar
*key club, south end of riley key...old place...been there forever...built by old money, now the residents' club...party place
*gulfway, small town 5 miles to the south

characters major minor peripheral
*dexter troy & mary jamison: they have been married four years...this is mary's second marriage...they have children....mary is 42...troy is? they live on riley key south of tampa. mary's first husband died, seven years ago, 1952, when mary was 35...mary is troy's...2nd wife...and mary had been married to bernard dow.
*mike rodenska: he is visiting w/the jamisons...he has known troy since the war...mike was a combat correspondent...his wife died from cancer...he has two sons in a school in vermont, his wife's doing...she knew he would need to get away after she passed...he inherited money
*jack connorly: mister republican, in real estate, married
* beth jordan: is on aluminum crutches, had been in bad accident the year prior...wrecked porsche
*deborah ann jamison: mary jamison's daughter...troy is the step-father
*rob raines: local lawyer, same general age as deborah ann, they practically grew up together
*buttons: i think a deceased wife of mike rodenska...recent...which is why the jamisons invited him to riley key
*doctors...one who treated buttons
*hemningway...erroll flynn
*children of mike...mike/seventeen, tommy/fifteen
*durelda...a servant/maid/cook for the jamisons...i think
*oscar brings her...another?
*captain irely
* colonel billy bryce
*marg laybourne, a neighbor of the jamisons...charles is her husband's name
* jamisons, laybournes, claytons, tomleys, carstairs, thatchers...names of the families on the key
*jerranna rowley: a young woman who has influence over troy...had influence in new york and now again in florida...she is s'posed to be the personification of evil...or, that's how mike sees her
*bonita "bunny": the first mrs. jamison...now mrs. robert parker linder...in colorado
*purdy elmarr...rich guy, wheeler/dealer type...and he and several others have their eye on troy jamison's mistakes w/horseshoe bay estates and hope to swoop in and make more money from the carcass
*j.c. arlenton...in partnership with purdy...corey haas.
*corey haas...one of four in partnership...they will form a corporation...or rob raines will.
* bahamian couple that manages the key club...gus, the manager...a staff of sixteen
*shirley mcguire, a friend of debbie/deborah ann's
* she is staying with the tennysons...martha tennyson is her aunt
*a scrawny man with a rusty bruch-cut
*brutish-looking young man
*wide-bellied young man in gas-station khakis
*cousin birdy...man that jerranna rowley is with...strength in numbers...and he is described...? ummm. large, big...strong...but not.
*gosnell...makes a wicker martini
*bart speeler...troy spent the night in the cabin of his chris...craft, i presume...but all we get is 'chris'...boat, regardless
*couple named murner
*alfred hitchcock...sugar ray...maudlin...hargrove...pyle
*tomley kid...gave troy a ride in his beach buggy in the morning
*a ten-man patrol with troy leading...japs...snipers...
*troy's/bonita's first girl...1946, lycia
*troy's/bonita's second girl...1948, cindy
*george broman, 114 e. 43rd...nyc...troy's lawyer during the time he was in new york
*wink haskell...another wheeler/dealer like elmarr, j.c., and corey haas
*dillon & burkhardt...lawyers...
*stan killian...a young upstart lawyer
*charlie kail...is mary's father
*joe wethered...old guy who had acreage...died...passted on to june alice wethered...passed on to young joe
*ma shelder...owns the cottages
*whitey and rose alice...own the fish camp...couple ancient trailers...kids in one trailer...rose and him in the other'n
*red...or red's b-29 bar
*marvin hessler...is an office-worker, co-worker of the horsehoe estates place...he keeps the place running when nobody else, troy...is around
*king kong, floy patterson
*hanstohm from tampa...specialist doctor
*a nurse...parkins
*leggy brown girls walked in their short shorts
*o'hara...the writer
*van cly or van clay
*a sleepy-faced woman stared...her husband
*an elderly couple in swimming clothes
*sam scherman, regular family doctor for the jamisons
*briggs & mildren thatcher...live there on the key
*the man who had bossed the horseshoe job
*a ten-man patrol
*a spare old man in sagging shorts
*lottie spranger...real estate woman
*doctor pherson

*the list is...ummm, say 95+% complete

update...rolling right along, saturday evening
yeah, okay, so this troy guy is self-destructive...is trying to destroy himself, another marriage, again...in florida this time, the other time in new york and this mike guy comes to the rescue. or tries to come to the rescue. the more things change the more they stay the same, hey? troy was a marine in the war...led men. was asked to lead a 10-man patrol and he did do that...but what he should have done is gone out past line-of-sight, dug in, and returned in the morning...as it was, he went out and lost all save himself. and so it goes. reading this...you got the moneyed folk living the life...this that the other...reminds me a bit of the great gatsby. different war, hey? which just goes to say that the more things change the more they stay the same.

there's this wheeling/dealin going on on the side....guys forming corporations to buy and sell from and to their other corporations...yum yum.

update, finished, 21 dec 14, a couple minutes shy of noon
finished. good story. this one does not have the run-of-the-mill bad guy committing the run-of-the-mill bad crimes. this story has an abundance of everyday people committing everyday bad things to others among others and story's end is wrapped up with a bow. i suppose you could say this is traditional literature whatever that is...every-day happenings in an everyday world. married people badly handling their marriages...unmarried people badly handling being unmarried...but all is well and all manner of things are well by story's end. or until we turn the page on the calendar. slam the big door...yeah, you bet...and to say more is the dreaded spoiler...but, the title is explained after a fashion.

good read.

time passages
page 153...mike has a conversation with buttons, his deceased wife...goes on for a page or so...this happens after a time with shirley...he is walking back and the narration moves from 3rd as it had been for all...to 1st, eye-narrator mike...and then he dips into that conversation with buttons. dips back to 3rd to set it up...'he takes a chair off the cabana...something something' and moves into 1st. not overwhelming in the time-passages scheme of things...but it is nice to see macdonald make use of it...much like that one in the leonard story, karen, talking to her old man as she drives the car...her reflection in the windshield the catalyst.

okee-dokee then...onward and upward.

[Freddie the Know-it-all · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've Overdone It With JDM

I've overdone it with this guy. I know, because almost all I do is find fault with him.

This one started off with the longest Nature Boy bullshit he's ever done before. Is there anyone alive who hasn't seen enough sunset pics? But reading descriptions of sunsets? Two-page descriptions of sunsets? I had my fill of any pics or yapping about sunsets many years ago.

I was enjoying the story quite a bit -- real estate swindles and drunkards -- and had high hopes. I liked the hero, Mike, but he became way too much of a cuck for my tastes by the end, and the happy ending was too happy for even me. Also too much Witty Banter. I wish JDM would restrain himself from writing this malarkey.

I was gonna recommend this book as one of his better ones, but I changed my mind.

Five stars, for the usual reason: I kept on wanting to know what would happen next.

[Stormcrow Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though this isn't one of JDM's classic noir or murder mysteries, there is no shortage of darkness, ugliness and immorality floating around until something has to give and explode in brief moments of what is going on here?

That happens several times, especially as his friend's stepdaughter Debbie Ann flirts with our protagonist Mike and it almost feels as if it's a question of when he'll be seduced by her. Then there's the development angle that features prominently in the first half, but then fades out in the second until it's resolved at the end. It feels as if something sinister can happen anywhere along the way. And it's almost the mildness of what really does happen, a husband having an affair, his explosive anger, the simpleness of one man's fall, that provides all the darkness we need without having to worry about if some real estate mogul is going to succeed in ousting the family from their business.

From a writing perspective, there are plenty of notable passages, but one of my favorites is around page 80 (in my original Gold Medal edition) in which JDM describes four business enterprises that have escaped modern zoning laws and why they're falling apart. Usually, when an author just stops and describes something, especially in more modern books, it takes me out of the setting instead of placing me in it. But here, there's such vivid details, I could easily picture each and every setting and the types of people who populated them.

Overall, there's something so interesting here and so different from many of the other MacDonald books I've read up to this point, and yet it's all just as engrossing.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mike Rodenska met Troy Jamison during the war, seventeen years before. Mike was a war correspondent and continued in journalism afterward. Troy had married, started a career in advertising, drank himself and both into oblivion, had a nervous breakdown, then moved to Florida.

The two kept in touch for a while, then went to letters, the occasional card, then almost nothing. Mike knew Trot had remarried and started a new career as a builder.

Now Mike was headed down for a visit. Recently widowed, Troy had invited him down to get away. He'd left his two boys with family and took off. He'd also come into a bit of money from an uncle who'd died and left him stocks he'd accumulated over the years.

Mike arrives to learn Troy is in trouble again. He was using his knowledge of building and his wife's money to try to develop an exclusive residential property on Riley Key. Now, after accidents and delays, he was about out of money. The vultures, some of the good old rich boys, were waiting on the sidelines to pick up the pieces, not just waiting, but willing to nudge those pieces around a bit themselves.

It doesn't take Mike long to realize Troy has problems, mental problems. This is the second marriage and career, headed toward success, that he seems determined to run into the ground.

All the old patterns are repeating. Even the old girl friend from back in New York was in the area.

Can he help Troy straighten things out? Is it even possible? He doesn't seem to realize the path he's headed down is the same as before.

His wife's sex-pot daughter, newly divorced, isn't helping matters either. She even makes a play for Mike, forty, balding, and with a bit of a gut.

As usual with MacDonald, he has sharply drawn characters and a well told tale.

Liked this one.

[Peter Sidell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think MacDonald liked this book because he became emotionally involved with the characters and like the way things worked out.

This book combines a morality play with MacDonald's is at the dispoiling of Florida by developers. World war two and the wealth it brought America in is aftermath changed many values in America. At the time many people questioned the changing values. To some extent every generation goes through that. The pill set the stage for even more dramatic change.
Post traumatic stress disorder was yet to be recognized. She'll shock an extreme and acute version had become part of the vocabulary but as a society we had yet to realize the chronic burden many carried at wars end. That is part of what MacDonald addresses here. MacDonald was there and saw what it did to the combatants, including himself. It probably did him good to get some of that of of his chest.
The scene of action for the novel is an amalgam of a couple of places on Florida's West coast - probably nearer Sarasota. It is interesting to hear him speak of a getaway to Marco. A much different place when the novel was written than it is now. At best it was a sleepy Beach town and fishing village. Having lived on the West coast of Florida for the last fort years I identify with MacDonald's disappointment with all the changes he saw take place.
No doubt one of the reasons I enjoy MacDonald's books is that so many are set in Florida.

[Gerald Kinro · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Mike Rodenska, a former journalist and recent widower, visits his old friend Troy Jamison in Florida, he finds Troy’s life falling apart. On the surface, his friend lives the good life—huge ocean-front property, parties, beautiful women. But what is going on and why? Mike sets out to solve this mystery. It involves some of Troy’s past. The pattern of Troy thinking with organs not meant for the task is consistent, past and present.

This is one I reread to see if it is appropriate and still very good as it was decades ago. His prose is sharp and crisp. This is a very well-plotted and well-told story whose themes ring true to this day. The characters and their dialog are very good. John D. still rocks.

[Charles Adkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of a domestic drama than a mystery, the classification on the spine of my copy. The story was as much literary fiction as it was pulp. And even the pulp was earned, reasonable, and nothing too appalling.

Maybe I'm just not sharp enough to see the difference, but if anything this book reminded me of Updike. Not as... beautiful, I guess, but similar in plot content and inner monologue and asides to the reader. Similar in the way both authors see the world and offer comment that tries to understand it even if they disdain it.

Another MacDonald, please.

[Jorn Barger · Rating 1 out of 5]

JDM fancied himself a psychologist, and this is the most self-indulgent so far along those lines. The central plot-arc would have worked well in 'Mad Men'-- an adman goes crazy/self-destructive/alcoholic. Too many overlapping characters. Too much real-estate shenanigans. No murder mystery.

The title does NOT refer to a prison cell. It's vaguely explained in the next to last chapter in a way that makes me think he was sick to death of this book by the time he was finishing it.

[Nick Baam · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is an awful book.

I saw an episode of Rockford Files not too long ago, and my God has that aged poorly. How was it not seen as ridiculous then?

The trailer -- the rusty trailer -- on the beach in Malibu... Rented? Owned? Allowed?

The police chum, Dennis. ("Howdy, Jimbo.") How likely is that?

And grungy lowlife Angel Martin, a character a real pi would watch die in the surf.

Saw too The Purple Rose of Cairo not too long ago, always one of my favorite Woody Allen films. It, too, has aged poorly. Too cute. Too obvious. Too Mia.

So it is w a heavy heart -- Trav and I go way back (a character, incidentally, just flat out stolen by Lawrence Block w Matthew Scudder) -- that I am forced to reevaluate MacDonald's books. This one's dreadful, more than a lemon sky, and two McGee books I read recently also have aged poorly. Meyer is a bore, McGee's ruminations pretty obvious and laborious, the dialogue not half as convincing or clever as I remembered.

There's always Chandler. And Hammett. And Cain.

[Benjamin Chandler · Rating 3 out of 5]

More drama than noir and not the slow-burner the cover promised. The pot never really comes to a boil in this one.

Mike is mourning his late wife when an old Army pal invites him to come to Florida to swim, bask, and have a few cocktails until he feels normal again. In the meantime, Mike realizes that Troy is still working through some self-hate he acquired in WWII and repeating self-destructive behavior that Mike had to clean up for Troy before. There's also a sub-plot about Troy's real estate holdings being taken over by sneaky dudes, which seems like it might lead to Mike having to do some investigating, but that never goes anywhere juicy.

This is more character studies than anything—MacDonald flexing his lit-fic muscles. I kept waiting for the book to become more than that, for it to grab me by the collar, but it just kind of fizzled into bitter ruminations on the modern world (well, 1960-modern). Some of these mini essays were quite nice, but I wish the plot propelled a bit more around them.

[Tim Field · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read all of MacDonald's Travis McGee books years ago and now I am on a mission to work my way through his standalone novels. Slam the Big Door started out great with its backstory of the two wartime friends Troy Jamison and Mike Rodenska and Mike's mission to save Troy from himself. The book's portrait of a wealthy insulated Florida community is sharp and Mike Rodenska is an appealing, conflicted and likeable character.

Note that this is not a crime novel by MacDonald but instead more of a character study and morality play like his early novel All These Condemned. I enjoyed this book until it seemed to lose its way halfway through and became repetitive and over-the-top in its portrayal of scheming women. Still, lesser John D. MacDonald is better than most authors at their peak powers and there is much in the book for the reader to enjoy.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mike heads to Florida on the invitation of his war buddy Troy after his wife dies. While he is there to get some rest, it is Troy that needs the help more. Troy clearly has some physiological issues after the war which causes self destructive behaviours. Mike has helped in the past and will try to help clear up some messes again, meanwhile resisting the advances of attractive women in this party town.

MacDonald is usually a nice light read and I almost always enjoy his novels. This one has the usual speeches MacDonald makes about moral issues and the state of things in Florida. Sometimes these tangents are excellent writing and other times they are too wordy and distract from the story. I liked the character of Mike and the story better then most of his novel but cannot quite rate it 5 stars.

[Terry Mulcahy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a favorite of the author, Mr. John D., published 1960. It is a good story, the ending is not what you'd expect from one of his crime novels. What you think might happen doesn't. The ending itself is unexpected. I enjoyed seeing his mind at work on this one, and the familiar intellectual introspection. MacDonald's hero is imperfect, and makes mistakes, and butts into other people's lives, and gives good advice some of the time. MacDonald's writing style is famliar, and his dissection of his characters, but this story goes to some very interesting places.

[George Kaplan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark, tragic and savagely bitter, Slam The Big Door transcends the already transcendent noir fiction that JDM consistently delivers. The savage tone will likely put many people off, particularly those who don’t share his cynical world view, but this novel should be considered among the very best of mid-20th century American literature.

[Regan MacArthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm fond of this book. It's got all the virtues one can expect from John D. MacDonald and only a few of the vices. My favorite line(paraphrased from memory): "I always wondered how rich guys felt on the inside: Are they smug? Or nervous?"