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Travis McGee #20
Cinnamon Skin
When Travis McGee's friend Meyer lent his boat to his niece Norma, and her new husband Even, the boat exploded out in the waters of the Florida Keys. Travis McGee thinks it's no accident, and clues lead him to ponder possibilities of drugs and also to wonder where Evan was when his wife was killed....
"Proves again that MacDonald keeps getting better with each new adventure."
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
"Proves again that MacDonald keeps getting better with each new adventure."
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
337 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1982
454 people are currently reading
1351 people want to read
About the author
John D. MacDonald
566 books1,369 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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July 9, 2021
“When you despair of what passes for storytelling in today’s dumbed-down video ‘culture,’ I have a prescription that works every time: Return to the Masters. Turn on some Gershwin, Ellington, Cole Porter, curl up, and open the first page of a John D. McDonald novel. You shall be restored!” — Joseph Wambaugh
There are several books in this landmark series by John D. MacDonald that resonate beyond those tidy labels people enjoy placing on books — so that they can categorize them as this or that — and this is one of them. I’ve always thought it was a shame that Cinnamon Skin came just before MacDonald’s swan song, The Lonely Silver Rain, because it gets overshadowed by the final entry. Though Lonely Silver Rain deserves the praise it receives, in many ways, Cinnamon Skin is a rich and mature novel with moments both poignant and powerful. It contains as much insight into the frail human condition as anything the author ever wrote. Sandwiched between the fun and rather freewheeling Free Fall in Crimson, and The Lonely Silver Rain, this three-book stretch late in the series rivals that of A Deadly Shade of Gold/Bright Orange for the Shroud/Darker Than Amber in the early years as MacDonald’s absolute best. There were other great ones, and some really good ones, but they alternated. The sustained excellence of those two separate three-book stretches in the series, written nearly twenty years apart, is astounding.
Cinnamon Skin is one of the most personal narratives of the series. A surprising number of the entries had some personal connection, but usually for McGee. This time, it’s more personal for Meyer —
"She wasn't at all pretty, but being in love made her beautiful."
That statement describes Meyer’s niece, Norma, who is blown sky high in Meyer’s boat while he’s away in Toronto trying to find the dignity taken from him by Desmin Grizzel near the end of Free Fall in Crimson. Geologist Norma Lawrence was not alone, however. She was honeymooning with Evan, who along with McGee’s old friend, Hack, also got blown to bits. To add to Meyer’s loss, a group calling themselves the Liberation Army of Chile has taken credit, apparently targeting Meyer, but killing his niece and husband by mistake.
A year has passed since the incidents in Free Fall in Crimson and it has certainly been a devastating one for Travis McGee’s best pal. McGee and Meyer’s gal-pal Aggie Sloane had cooked up the Toronto lecture just to get Meyer back in the game, walking among the living. McGee is still with Free Fall's Annie as Cinnamon Skin opens, but the seeds for a bittersweet parting begin taking root when Annie is offered a resort in Hawaii to manage. She wants McGee to pick up his stuff and come with her. Like Spenser and Hawk in Robert B. Parker’s series, which came later, there is something at McGee’s core she can’t quite reach. It is the part of him which enables him to do what he does, and to live as he does, and it bothers her.
When McGee sees a photo taken moments before the explosion, he begins to explore, very quietly, the unthinkable. Once he is certain, he must tell Meyer. Soon, the two are following a bloody trail leading them to Texas, and then Mexico. Cinnamon Skin will end deep in the Yucatán, in the jungle. Along the way the reader is privy to human pain and regret, and some of the most keenly drawn characters in the series. Cinnamon's narrative is sad and moving, with Meyer’s loss and need for revenge also his road to reclaim what he lost at the hands of Grizzel in Free Fall in Crimson. The story-line gives both McGee and Meyer an opportunity to ruminate on life and death, and the human condition. In addition, we get a wonderful piece of writing by McDonald from the feminine perspective, when he finds love letters Norma had written to Evan which cast a light on their relationship. Meyer is the one who eventually ruminates about Norma’s death, and a dream he’s been having, during a car ride with McGee:
“Death is an unending rerun until the last person with any memory of you is also dead.”
Once they begin backtracking the steps of Norma’s husband, they discover one sad ending after another. The trail leads McGee and Meyer to people touched by a man who is seemingly without conscience. But then Sergeant Paul Sigiera paints a picture even more disturbing; a terrible incident in the past may have lain the foundation for a man with more names than Elvis had hit singles, to become what he has now become. Always a gentle man, economist Meyer wants to at least understand the killer before bringing about justice, or even vengeance. But McGee has seen too much violence and death, and knows how dangerous that road can be. McGee is having none of it:
“You start with the assumption that everybody is peachy, and then something comes along and warps them. You start with a concept of goodness, and so what we are supposed to do as a society is understand why they turn sour. I start with the assumption that there is such a thing as evil which can exist without causation. The black heart which takes joy in being black.”
It is a description which certainly applies to the man they’re searching for, as McGee and Meyer con their way through friends and even relatives, to find him. The search itself provides poignant moments, and reflections from both men on the price paid for conning their way into someone’s life. Meyer reflects on such after one such visit has deadly, unexpected consequences:
“I feel very sad and soiled and old. She really hasn’t anything left.”
Out of their element, McGee knows he’ll need help, and finds it in the form of a beautiful woman of Mayan and Toltec lineage named Barbara Castillo. Barbara will enlist the help of Mayan natives as they trek through the jungle after an evil man with a friendly facade. By the time McGee and Meyer find ‘Evan’ it’s clear that both men were right in their psychological appraisal. Wonderfully informative moments about the Mayan culture are interwoven into the narrative by MacDonald. The author gives us not only a great story of retribution, but a look inward by McGee, as the tarnished knight comes to terms with what Annie wants, in contrast to what he’s able to give her:
“You have been living your life on your own terms. You need make only those concessions which please you. There are always funny friends, parties, beach girls, and the occasional dragon to go after. I don’t pretend to know the circumstances that shaped you. I would guess that at some time during your formative years there was an incident that gave you a distaste for most kinds of permanence.” — Friend/Lover Dr. Laura Honneker to Travis McGee
A great story with grounded psychological underpinnings, perceptive observations about society and the human condition, and tremendous atmosphere as it draws to an exciting conclusion, Cinnamon Skin is one of the finest novels in a long series so littered with them, it became one of the great sagas in American fiction. Highly recommended!
* As a footnote, if you’re wondering about the title of this one, it is in reference to Barbara Castillo, the lovely Mayan woman who helps McGee and Meyer track a killer — and has her own reasons for vengeance. But it is also a Spanish song made reference to in Cinnamon Skin. Here is a link to Eydie Gorme’s wonderful version of the song — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVNf_...
There are several books in this landmark series by John D. MacDonald that resonate beyond those tidy labels people enjoy placing on books — so that they can categorize them as this or that — and this is one of them. I’ve always thought it was a shame that Cinnamon Skin came just before MacDonald’s swan song, The Lonely Silver Rain, because it gets overshadowed by the final entry. Though Lonely Silver Rain deserves the praise it receives, in many ways, Cinnamon Skin is a rich and mature novel with moments both poignant and powerful. It contains as much insight into the frail human condition as anything the author ever wrote. Sandwiched between the fun and rather freewheeling Free Fall in Crimson, and The Lonely Silver Rain, this three-book stretch late in the series rivals that of A Deadly Shade of Gold/Bright Orange for the Shroud/Darker Than Amber in the early years as MacDonald’s absolute best. There were other great ones, and some really good ones, but they alternated. The sustained excellence of those two separate three-book stretches in the series, written nearly twenty years apart, is astounding.
Cinnamon Skin is one of the most personal narratives of the series. A surprising number of the entries had some personal connection, but usually for McGee. This time, it’s more personal for Meyer —
"She wasn't at all pretty, but being in love made her beautiful."
That statement describes Meyer’s niece, Norma, who is blown sky high in Meyer’s boat while he’s away in Toronto trying to find the dignity taken from him by Desmin Grizzel near the end of Free Fall in Crimson. Geologist Norma Lawrence was not alone, however. She was honeymooning with Evan, who along with McGee’s old friend, Hack, also got blown to bits. To add to Meyer’s loss, a group calling themselves the Liberation Army of Chile has taken credit, apparently targeting Meyer, but killing his niece and husband by mistake.
A year has passed since the incidents in Free Fall in Crimson and it has certainly been a devastating one for Travis McGee’s best pal. McGee and Meyer’s gal-pal Aggie Sloane had cooked up the Toronto lecture just to get Meyer back in the game, walking among the living. McGee is still with Free Fall's Annie as Cinnamon Skin opens, but the seeds for a bittersweet parting begin taking root when Annie is offered a resort in Hawaii to manage. She wants McGee to pick up his stuff and come with her. Like Spenser and Hawk in Robert B. Parker’s series, which came later, there is something at McGee’s core she can’t quite reach. It is the part of him which enables him to do what he does, and to live as he does, and it bothers her.
When McGee sees a photo taken moments before the explosion, he begins to explore, very quietly, the unthinkable. Once he is certain, he must tell Meyer. Soon, the two are following a bloody trail leading them to Texas, and then Mexico. Cinnamon Skin will end deep in the Yucatán, in the jungle. Along the way the reader is privy to human pain and regret, and some of the most keenly drawn characters in the series. Cinnamon's narrative is sad and moving, with Meyer’s loss and need for revenge also his road to reclaim what he lost at the hands of Grizzel in Free Fall in Crimson. The story-line gives both McGee and Meyer an opportunity to ruminate on life and death, and the human condition. In addition, we get a wonderful piece of writing by McDonald from the feminine perspective, when he finds love letters Norma had written to Evan which cast a light on their relationship. Meyer is the one who eventually ruminates about Norma’s death, and a dream he’s been having, during a car ride with McGee:
“Death is an unending rerun until the last person with any memory of you is also dead.”
Once they begin backtracking the steps of Norma’s husband, they discover one sad ending after another. The trail leads McGee and Meyer to people touched by a man who is seemingly without conscience. But then Sergeant Paul Sigiera paints a picture even more disturbing; a terrible incident in the past may have lain the foundation for a man with more names than Elvis had hit singles, to become what he has now become. Always a gentle man, economist Meyer wants to at least understand the killer before bringing about justice, or even vengeance. But McGee has seen too much violence and death, and knows how dangerous that road can be. McGee is having none of it:
“You start with the assumption that everybody is peachy, and then something comes along and warps them. You start with a concept of goodness, and so what we are supposed to do as a society is understand why they turn sour. I start with the assumption that there is such a thing as evil which can exist without causation. The black heart which takes joy in being black.”
It is a description which certainly applies to the man they’re searching for, as McGee and Meyer con their way through friends and even relatives, to find him. The search itself provides poignant moments, and reflections from both men on the price paid for conning their way into someone’s life. Meyer reflects on such after one such visit has deadly, unexpected consequences:
“I feel very sad and soiled and old. She really hasn’t anything left.”
Out of their element, McGee knows he’ll need help, and finds it in the form of a beautiful woman of Mayan and Toltec lineage named Barbara Castillo. Barbara will enlist the help of Mayan natives as they trek through the jungle after an evil man with a friendly facade. By the time McGee and Meyer find ‘Evan’ it’s clear that both men were right in their psychological appraisal. Wonderfully informative moments about the Mayan culture are interwoven into the narrative by MacDonald. The author gives us not only a great story of retribution, but a look inward by McGee, as the tarnished knight comes to terms with what Annie wants, in contrast to what he’s able to give her:
“You have been living your life on your own terms. You need make only those concessions which please you. There are always funny friends, parties, beach girls, and the occasional dragon to go after. I don’t pretend to know the circumstances that shaped you. I would guess that at some time during your formative years there was an incident that gave you a distaste for most kinds of permanence.” — Friend/Lover Dr. Laura Honneker to Travis McGee
A great story with grounded psychological underpinnings, perceptive observations about society and the human condition, and tremendous atmosphere as it draws to an exciting conclusion, Cinnamon Skin is one of the finest novels in a long series so littered with them, it became one of the great sagas in American fiction. Highly recommended!
* As a footnote, if you’re wondering about the title of this one, it is in reference to Barbara Castillo, the lovely Mayan woman who helps McGee and Meyer track a killer — and has her own reasons for vengeance. But it is also a Spanish song made reference to in Cinnamon Skin. Here is a link to Eydie Gorme’s wonderful version of the song — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVNf_...
January 29, 2018
Every time I read this book I end up humming Neil Young’s Cinnamon Girl the entire time so it’s a relief to finish it and put a stop to that particular ear worm.
Travis McGee’s best buddy Meyer has loaned his houseboat to his niece and her new husband for their honeymoon while he’s away at a conference. Unfortunately, somebody blows up the boat as they’re going out on a fishing trip and all aboard are killed. (Providing more evidence for my theory that nothing good ever happens on a boat.) A South American terrorist group claims responsibility for the bombing, but that makes no sense to Meyer who asks Travis to help him find whoever was responsible.
McGee starts poking around and comes across evidence that the new hubby wasn’t on the boat after all. Pulling on that thread puts them on the trail of a mystery man with a chilling pattern of seduction and murder for profit. The other wrinkle here is that Meyer is recovering from a very bad moment in a previous book so catching his niece’s killer is a way to regain his nerve.
As usual when I reread one of these John D. MacDonald novels I find a lot I liked with some very good insights of what society was becoming mixed with some incredibly dated sexist attitudes. Travis and Meyer make for a good partnership of detective/con men, and a lot of good stuff comes from them trying to backtrack someone just based on some casual anecdotes he told them over dinner one night. MacDonald also uses McGee to muse on where the world is headed and really hit the nail on the head regarding some predictions about the growing computer age of the early ‘80s.
Yet Travis still has to give a mostly platonic female friend a pat on the butt in appreciation of a job well done. In fairness, the books got better in terms of this from their start in the ‘60s, and a big subplot here is that Travis is having relationship troubles with his current lady that are dealt with in a surprisingly adult fashion that gives equal time to her point of view.
The overall improvement of McGee’s relationships with women, and the personal angle of Meyer’s involvement make this one a better than average book in the series.
Travis McGee’s best buddy Meyer has loaned his houseboat to his niece and her new husband for their honeymoon while he’s away at a conference. Unfortunately, somebody blows up the boat as they’re going out on a fishing trip and all aboard are killed. (Providing more evidence for my theory that nothing good ever happens on a boat.) A South American terrorist group claims responsibility for the bombing, but that makes no sense to Meyer who asks Travis to help him find whoever was responsible.
McGee starts poking around and comes across evidence that the new hubby wasn’t on the boat after all. Pulling on that thread puts them on the trail of a mystery man with a chilling pattern of seduction and murder for profit. The other wrinkle here is that Meyer is recovering from a very bad moment in a previous book so catching his niece’s killer is a way to regain his nerve.
As usual when I reread one of these John D. MacDonald novels I find a lot I liked with some very good insights of what society was becoming mixed with some incredibly dated sexist attitudes. Travis and Meyer make for a good partnership of detective/con men, and a lot of good stuff comes from them trying to backtrack someone just based on some casual anecdotes he told them over dinner one night. MacDonald also uses McGee to muse on where the world is headed and really hit the nail on the head regarding some predictions about the growing computer age of the early ‘80s.
Yet Travis still has to give a mostly platonic female friend a pat on the butt in appreciation of a job well done. In fairness, the books got better in terms of this from their start in the ‘60s, and a big subplot here is that Travis is having relationship troubles with his current lady that are dealt with in a surprisingly adult fashion that gives equal time to her point of view.
The overall improvement of McGee’s relationships with women, and the personal angle of Meyer’s involvement make this one a better than average book in the series.
April 18, 2024
The 20th of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee novels, Cinnamon Skin is both one of the saddest and most heart-breaking instalments as well as probably being amongst my absolute favourites of the series, as it is a novel that basically and almost entirely features a storyline centred around Meyer, Travis McGee's intellectual and academic PhD in economics sidekick and still one of my favourite literary characters ever, a true and lasting literary crush. And although the plot itself is really and truly saddening, even anger-inducing and infuriating (with Meyer losing both his only living relative, his cherished niece, and his house, his boat, in a horrible explosion that turns out to have been instigated by Nora's new husband who was originally thought to have also been killed), the way that Meyer and McGee go about solving the mystery, the fact that McGee puts EVERYTHING aside and on hold to support his best friend, to find out what happened, to locate the culprit and make him pay for what he has wrought, what he has done, this always makes me both cry with anguish, with feeling, and smile with gladness and much happy appreciation.
Now I guess I could have done without the fear and emerging terror when it appears as though Meyer might have been killed, might in fact be dead, but Cinnamon Skin is a mystery and these types of scenarios are part and parcel to the genre, although if John D. MacDonald had actually chosen to dispatch of Meyer, if he had chosen to actually have killed him off, I for one, would have been both simply furious and livid, as Meyer is basically the only reason I keep reading John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series, for while I can appreciate the eponymous hero, while I can even somewhat enjoy Travis McGee as a character, without Meyer, the series basically means nothing much at all to and for me (and I am truly sad therefore, that Cinnamon Skin is the second to last of the Travis MacGee series, that there is only one more instalment left, sigh). Highly recommended for fans of the Travis McGee series (and especially for fans of McGee's sidekick Meyer), Cinnamon Skin works well enough as a stand alone, although for completists, the novel immediately preceding Cinnamon Skin, Free Fall in Crimson should perhaps also be considered, although not having read the latter is not really that much of a potential issue, as the events of Free Fall in Crimson and how they have a bearing on Cinnamon Skin are more than adequately summarised and described, when during the first few pages of the latter novel, John D. MaDonald sets the stage as to why Meyer is away at a conference and why and how his niece Nora and her as it turns out to be lethally evil new husband are living aboard Meyer's boat on their honeymoon.
Now I guess I could have done without the fear and emerging terror when it appears as though Meyer might have been killed, might in fact be dead, but Cinnamon Skin is a mystery and these types of scenarios are part and parcel to the genre, although if John D. MacDonald had actually chosen to dispatch of Meyer, if he had chosen to actually have killed him off, I for one, would have been both simply furious and livid, as Meyer is basically the only reason I keep reading John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series, for while I can appreciate the eponymous hero, while I can even somewhat enjoy Travis McGee as a character, without Meyer, the series basically means nothing much at all to and for me (and I am truly sad therefore, that Cinnamon Skin is the second to last of the Travis MacGee series, that there is only one more instalment left, sigh). Highly recommended for fans of the Travis McGee series (and especially for fans of McGee's sidekick Meyer), Cinnamon Skin works well enough as a stand alone, although for completists, the novel immediately preceding Cinnamon Skin, Free Fall in Crimson should perhaps also be considered, although not having read the latter is not really that much of a potential issue, as the events of Free Fall in Crimson and how they have a bearing on Cinnamon Skin are more than adequately summarised and described, when during the first few pages of the latter novel, John D. MaDonald sets the stage as to why Meyer is away at a conference and why and how his niece Nora and her as it turns out to be lethally evil new husband are living aboard Meyer's boat on their honeymoon.
July 25, 2015
I think this is my sixth MacDonald (and fifth Travis McGee) novel. There is something trashy but smooth about all of MacDonald's work. They are probably mid-tier pulp from a plot sandpoint, but woven through out each is a bunch of philosophy, economics and politics that braids the novels with a form of libertarian conservatism that is kinda attractive. This isn't Ayn Rand trash. This is John D. MacDonald. So the politics/economics/philosophy is soft, the writing is good, and the covers are all soft-core.
The math with John D., however, is interesting. His plots can vascillate (meh to great), his political philosophy can also move and vary (meh to great), as does his writing about women and sex (ugh to blah). Generally, I prefer his books when the politics is dialed up, the sex is dialed down, and the plot is hard and fast. Cinnamon Skin came through. It wasn't brilliant, but it made my flight from Phoenix to Dallas easy. Hopefully, the person who finds my yellowed copy in Seat 14D will appreciate it as much as I did.
The math with John D., however, is interesting. His plots can vascillate (meh to great), his political philosophy can also move and vary (meh to great), as does his writing about women and sex (ugh to blah). Generally, I prefer his books when the politics is dialed up, the sex is dialed down, and the plot is hard and fast. Cinnamon Skin came through. It wasn't brilliant, but it made my flight from Phoenix to Dallas easy. Hopefully, the person who finds my yellowed copy in Seat 14D will appreciate it as much as I did.
July 25, 2017
One of the better McGee stories, a good plot, Travis in old age is not as creepy, and another buddy adventure with Meyer. What more can you ask for?
April 12, 2010
You are going to be so sick of me telling you how much I love Travis McGee. No really, you are. There are 21 books, and having just read the penultimate novel, I've decided to start at the beginning again, rather than read the last book. I'm just not ready to live in a world where there are no new McGees for me to read.
But more on that later. Today, we're gushing over Cinnamon Skin, which was written in 1982 and is the next-to-last book in the series. Quick plot recap, because apparently some people (such as my husband) think that "plot" is an important part of novels....
Travis McGee and his best bud Meyer live on houseboats in Florida. One day, while Meyer is in Canada lecturing about economics, his boat is blown up, killing a fishing guide his niece and her new husband, Evan. Or perhaps not. Apparently Evan is the real sketchy sort who floats around the country, gets women to fall in love with him and then kills them. McGee and Meyer set out to track Evan down and reconstruct his past. They end up in Texas, upstate New York and Mexico. They meet a lot of people and do a bit of sleuthing. There is a showdown. People get shot. The end.
If you are my husband and read a book for the story, Cinnamon Skin is routine hard-boiled fiction. If you are romantic, and fall in love with philosophical beach bums who run into more than their fair share of trouble, Cinnamon Skin is a story of devotion.
McGee and Meyer have that sitting-on-the-balcony-deconstructing-the-world-drinking-scotch kind of relationship - except their balconies are boats, and I think they prefer gin. Their years of friendship has led to complete trust and understanding of each other, so when Meyer thinks he might need Trav's professional detective assistance to track down evil Evan, Trav is insulted at Meyer's reluctance to impose.
Meyer speaks first:
"You'd come help out if I come upon anything like that?"
"Gee, I don't really know. I have these tennis matches with the ambassador's daughter, and I've been thinking of getting my teeth capped. You know how it is."
"I'll pay all expenses."
"For Christ's sweet sake, Meyer!"
"I'm sorry. It's just that I'm not at home in the world the way I was."
"You holler, I'll come running."
I love that author John MacDonald writes dialogue without exposition. He's created strong characters and carefully crafts conversations so I know just how Meyer and McGee are speaking without having to be told "Meyer asked timidly" or "Travis reassured him." That's the talent of a good writer who respects the intelligence of his readers.
MacDonald also had a talent for philosophizing on the workings of the world in a way that still feels totally relevant nearly 30 (or 50) years later. These bits are my absolute favorite parts, so please indulge a large excerpt here at the end.
A lead has taken Meyer and McGee to Utica, a small city in Central New York. In a resturant bar, McGee notices a group of young political professionals with "feverish gregariousness" and wonders why they "seemed so frantic about having a good time." Meyer's response nearly made me cry. My heart is in CNY. It's where I went to college, became my own person and fell in love. John MacDonald grew up there, and I think we share the same regret for the direction the region is heading.
But more on that later. Today, we're gushing over Cinnamon Skin, which was written in 1982 and is the next-to-last book in the series. Quick plot recap, because apparently some people (such as my husband) think that "plot" is an important part of novels....
Travis McGee and his best bud Meyer live on houseboats in Florida. One day, while Meyer is in Canada lecturing about economics, his boat is blown up, killing a fishing guide his niece and her new husband, Evan. Or perhaps not. Apparently Evan is the real sketchy sort who floats around the country, gets women to fall in love with him and then kills them. McGee and Meyer set out to track Evan down and reconstruct his past. They end up in Texas, upstate New York and Mexico. They meet a lot of people and do a bit of sleuthing. There is a showdown. People get shot. The end.
If you are my husband and read a book for the story, Cinnamon Skin is routine hard-boiled fiction. If you are romantic, and fall in love with philosophical beach bums who run into more than their fair share of trouble, Cinnamon Skin is a story of devotion.
McGee and Meyer have that sitting-on-the-balcony-deconstructing-the-world-drinking-scotch kind of relationship - except their balconies are boats, and I think they prefer gin. Their years of friendship has led to complete trust and understanding of each other, so when Meyer thinks he might need Trav's professional detective assistance to track down evil Evan, Trav is insulted at Meyer's reluctance to impose.
Meyer speaks first:
"You'd come help out if I come upon anything like that?"
"Gee, I don't really know. I have these tennis matches with the ambassador's daughter, and I've been thinking of getting my teeth capped. You know how it is."
"I'll pay all expenses."
"For Christ's sweet sake, Meyer!"
"I'm sorry. It's just that I'm not at home in the world the way I was."
"You holler, I'll come running."
I love that author John MacDonald writes dialogue without exposition. He's created strong characters and carefully crafts conversations so I know just how Meyer and McGee are speaking without having to be told "Meyer asked timidly" or "Travis reassured him." That's the talent of a good writer who respects the intelligence of his readers.
MacDonald also had a talent for philosophizing on the workings of the world in a way that still feels totally relevant nearly 30 (or 50) years later. These bits are my absolute favorite parts, so please indulge a large excerpt here at the end.
A lead has taken Meyer and McGee to Utica, a small city in Central New York. In a resturant bar, McGee notices a group of young political professionals with "feverish gregariousness" and wonders why they "seemed so frantic about having a good time." Meyer's response nearly made me cry. My heart is in CNY. It's where I went to college, became my own person and fell in love. John MacDonald grew up there, and I think we share the same regret for the direction the region is heading.
Meyer studied the question and finally said, "It's energy without a productive outlet, I think. Most of these Mohawk Valley cities are dying, have been for years: Albany, Troy, Amsterdam, Utica, Syracuse, Rome. And so they make an industry out of government. State office buildings in the decaying downtowns. A proliferation of committees, surveys, advisory boards, commissions, legal actions, grants, welfare, zoning boards, road departments, health care groups... thousands upon thousands of people making a reasonably good living working for city, county, state and federal governments in these dwindling cities, passing the same tax dollars back and forth. I think that man, by instinct, is productive. He wants to make something, a stone ax, a bigger cave, better arrows, whatever. But these bright and energetic men know in their hearts they are not making anything. They use every connection, every contact, every device to stay within reach of public monies. Working within an abstraction is just not a totally honorable way of life. Hence the air of jumpy joy, the backslaps ringing too loudly, compliments too extravagant, toasts too ornate, marriages too brief, lawsuits too long-drawn, obligatory forms too complex and too long. Their city has gone stale and as the light wanes, they dance."
May 30, 2020
A confession: My admiration for JDM is boundless. His influence on writers of crime fiction can not be overestimated. So, what about this, the 20th of 21 Travis McGee novels?
"There are no one hundred percent heroes."
That's the famous opening line, and it's helped mold several generations of novelists. Jack Reacher is a descendant of Travis McGee, as Lee Child is a great admirer of MacDonald's work, as are Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Carl Hiaasen and other heavyweights.
The plot of "Cinnamon Skin?" Oh, there's a boat that explodes and a drug deal, but the plots barely matter in the McGee series. It's the rich character, and the pyrotechnic writing. MacDonald may be the most quotable crime fiction writer since Raymond Chandler.
“Waves can wash away the most stubborn stains, and the stars do not care one way or the other.”
Then there's his concern for the environment of Florida...sixty years ago!
“Somebody has to be tireless or the fast buck operators would asphalt the entire coast, fill every bay and slay every living thing incapable of carrying a wallet.”
And those opening lines: “We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody threw the girl off the bridge.”
You can start with the first one, "The Deep Blue Good-By," to which I paid homage in "The Deep Blue Alibi." I bet you'll read all 21...and then start all over again.
August 17, 2022
Number 20 of the Travis McGee series continues a couple of themes from where Free Fall in Crimson left off. McGee is still playing touchy-feely with Annie and he's still trying to help Meyer deal with his residual depression after his take down by the biker Dirty Bob. When Meyer's boat is blown up, killing his niece, we are in uncharted territory for the series. No salvage job for a client this time. It's all about revenge and MacDonald is at his best exploring the psychological depths of the characters. Structurally, the story is also quite similar to Crimson in that we have a powerful villain who is off stage until the end. We know him from stories of his exploits without actually seeing him in action. I'm not a fan of this structure, much prefer learning about a villain by having them do evil in real time. Also disappointed that we didn't get one of those great multi-scene climactic sequences that MacDonald was such a master at writing. Just one, slightly implausible, setup that delivers an uppercut for sure, but was much shorter than the usual McGee endings and that kept this from being one of the great books in the series. The high points are McGee and Meyer investigating to learn the villain's past, Meyer's recovery, and the varied settings as they go from Florida to Texas to upstate New York and eventually to Mexico. Good stuff, but just mid-tier for me.
January 26, 2013
In DREADFUL LEMON Trav’s boat gets wrecked by a bomb: Trav wakes up in the hospital; ditto Busted Flush, which still floats. But John D. is on a roll here. In CINNAMON SKIN Meyer’s boat John Maynard Keynes is blasted into tiny scraps of floating debris, while Meyer was giving a speech ashore, but Meyer’s niece Norma and new hubby were borrowing the boat.
Meyer: “We’re each expert in our own death.”
The Feds descend on an incompetent terrorism investigation that changes into a drug smuggling investigation (well, CINNAMON was ©1982), but Travis quickly suspects that Norma’s husband was not aboard during the explosion.
Travis: “And so I am separated from my own true love by fifty-three proctologists?”
Lots of Meyer in this one, which is a bonus. Now, John D. is famous for using his novels to sneak in social commentary riffs. Some readers hate it; some love it.
From CINNAMON: …we passed one shop which sold computers, printers, software, and games. It was packed with teenagers, the kind who wear wire rims and know what the new world is about. The clerks were indulgent, letting them program the computers. Two hundred yards away, near the six movie houses, a different kind of teenager shoved quarters into the space-war games, tensing over the triggers, releasing the eerie sounds of extraterrestrial combat. Any kid back in the computer store could have told the combatants that because there is no atmosphere in space, there is absolutely no sound at all. Perfect distribution: the future managers and the future managed ones. Twenty in the computer store, two hundred in the arcade.
That piece of the riff has haunted me for two decades. But there are things in this novel that haunt me more, like the serial killer and destroyer of many women that Travis and Meyer are hunting.
@hg47
July 7, 2017
Although sometimes categorized as a mystery series, the McGee series may borrow some ideas from mysteries, but it is a series about as far from the standard PI genre as can be. McGee is not a PI. He’s a salvage consultant. When someone loses something of value and the normal lawful means of getting it back are not sufficient, he figures out how to outfox the conmen and tries to nets a fifty percent profit of the haul. He lives on a houseboat in the Bahai Mar Marina on the Florida Coast. Often, he confronts conmen, swindlers, and just mean ones, but he is about as unofficial and off-the-books as they come.
In this novel, trouble comes home to the Bahai Mar Marina and the John Maynard Keynes is blown up with three people on it and not enough left of anyone to bury. This is a story of a man with good looks and charm and wit who can sell anything to anyone and practically hypnotize any woman and when her accounts are cleaned out, he's gone without a trace. There's a trail of broken bodies and broken souls ranging across half the country and the trail is ice cold. There's no client in this one and very little left to salvage. --- just a battle with absolute evil in its most devilishly charming form.
Much of this story is about the investigation that McGee and Meyer take into the conman's troubled pasts and the ghosts they awaken as they try to nudge people's memories. Despite the fact that it may be more cerebral than action-oriented, It is a conpelling read from page one through to the end. This is MacDonald writing in his most carefully crafted, mature form. I really enjoyed this book.
In this novel, trouble comes home to the Bahai Mar Marina and the John Maynard Keynes is blown up with three people on it and not enough left of anyone to bury. This is a story of a man with good looks and charm and wit who can sell anything to anyone and practically hypnotize any woman and when her accounts are cleaned out, he's gone without a trace. There's a trail of broken bodies and broken souls ranging across half the country and the trail is ice cold. There's no client in this one and very little left to salvage. --- just a battle with absolute evil in its most devilishly charming form.
Much of this story is about the investigation that McGee and Meyer take into the conman's troubled pasts and the ghosts they awaken as they try to nudge people's memories. Despite the fact that it may be more cerebral than action-oriented, It is a conpelling read from page one through to the end. This is MacDonald writing in his most carefully crafted, mature form. I really enjoyed this book.
September 10, 2017
3.5*
A solid entry in the McGee series. This one could be read as a stand-alone but benefits if the reader is familiar with the previous book, Free Fall in Crimson.
A solid entry in the McGee series. This one could be read as a stand-alone but benefits if the reader is familiar with the previous book, Free Fall in Crimson.
January 21, 2021
John D MacDonald provides insight into male behavior. Could have saved myself lots of grief, if I had read in high school. (Sigh)
pg 60: He'd just turned 50. Men do funny things when they come up against a birthday with a zero on the end of it. They wonder if their life is pointless. They wonder what other kinds of lives they could have led. Don't judge him. Few ever get caught, and the ones that do get out on bail, and the cases don't come to trial for years. The U.S. attorney's office in Miami has a nine-year backlog of dope cases." (Or you can get a presidential pardon (143) with each new president)
On highway traffic. pg 62 What traffic consultants seem unable to comprehend is that heavy traffic makes its own rules because nobody can nip in and pull anybody over to the side without setting up a shock wave that would scream tires and crumple fenders for a mile back down the road. California discovered this first. It is probably a more important discovery than est or redwood hot tubs.
In such traffic there are two kinds of maniacs. The first is the one who goes a legal 55 and becomes like a boulder in a swift stream. ..... The second is the one who tries to go nine miles faster than the flow instead of nine miles slower. This type is often bombed out of his mind on booze, cannabis, crazy candy or martial disagreements....
pg 68 Two hundred yards away, near the six movie houses, a different kind of teenager shoved quarters into the space-war games, tensing over the triggers, releasing the eerie sounds of extraterrestrial combat. Any kid back in the computer store could have told the combatants that because there is no atmosphere in space, there is absolutely no sound at all. Perfect distribution: the future managers and the future managed ones. Twenty in the computer store, two hundred in the arcade.
Management 101. pg 99 Gossip can exist only when the relationship gossiped about can have some effect upon the community, good or bad. What are they really like when they're together? Do they say anything about us? Will they break up? Will that change her?
By instinct, Annie had fastened upon a very good personnel management technique. She treated every employee with courtesy, fairness, and impartiality. She pitched in on any kind of unpleasant work when there was an emergency. She did not make a confidant of any employee and thus kept a distance from them all. She listened to complaints, prowled the whole area at unexpected times, rewarded top performance with raises, and fired the lazy, the indifferent, the thieves, and the liars.
I was proud of the job she was doing, and at the same time felt a little uncomfortable with it. She was a paragon. And she was making a hell of a lot of money for the chain.
On growth pg 101: ...an article about Florida population. We're getting a thousand new residents a day. Permanent residents. A little family every six minutes. In the public restaurants of Florida, one and a half million people can have a sit-down mean at the same time. We're the seventh largest state. We get thirty-eight million tourists a year. And the rivers and the swamps are dying, the birds are dying, the fish are dying. They're paving the whole state. And the people who give a damn can't be heard. The developers make big campaign contributions. And there isn't enough money to treat the sewage.
pg 108 Florida was second rate, flashy and cheap and tacky and noisy. The water supply was failing. The developers were moving in on the marshlands and estuaries, pleading new economic growth. The commercial fishermen were an endangered species. Miami was the world's murder capital. Phosphate and fruit trucks were pounding the tired old roads into bubble. Droughts of increasing severity were browning the landscape. Wary folks stayed off the unlighted beaches and dimly lighted streets at night, fearing the minority knife, the ethnic club the bullet from the stolen gun. And yet....and yet...
pg 198 And Robinette has a case of what you professional people call satyriasis. You'd have been screwed lame by now, conscious or unconscious, sitting, kneeling, lying down, or standing on one leg. You'd walk funny for a week. And I didn't touch you, except to tote you from my pickup to your bed.
Copyrighted in 1982 amazingly prescient.
pg 60: He'd just turned 50. Men do funny things when they come up against a birthday with a zero on the end of it. They wonder if their life is pointless. They wonder what other kinds of lives they could have led. Don't judge him. Few ever get caught, and the ones that do get out on bail, and the cases don't come to trial for years. The U.S. attorney's office in Miami has a nine-year backlog of dope cases." (Or you can get a presidential pardon (143) with each new president)
On highway traffic. pg 62 What traffic consultants seem unable to comprehend is that heavy traffic makes its own rules because nobody can nip in and pull anybody over to the side without setting up a shock wave that would scream tires and crumple fenders for a mile back down the road. California discovered this first. It is probably a more important discovery than est or redwood hot tubs.
In such traffic there are two kinds of maniacs. The first is the one who goes a legal 55 and becomes like a boulder in a swift stream. ..... The second is the one who tries to go nine miles faster than the flow instead of nine miles slower. This type is often bombed out of his mind on booze, cannabis, crazy candy or martial disagreements....
pg 68 Two hundred yards away, near the six movie houses, a different kind of teenager shoved quarters into the space-war games, tensing over the triggers, releasing the eerie sounds of extraterrestrial combat. Any kid back in the computer store could have told the combatants that because there is no atmosphere in space, there is absolutely no sound at all. Perfect distribution: the future managers and the future managed ones. Twenty in the computer store, two hundred in the arcade.
Management 101. pg 99 Gossip can exist only when the relationship gossiped about can have some effect upon the community, good or bad. What are they really like when they're together? Do they say anything about us? Will they break up? Will that change her?
By instinct, Annie had fastened upon a very good personnel management technique. She treated every employee with courtesy, fairness, and impartiality. She pitched in on any kind of unpleasant work when there was an emergency. She did not make a confidant of any employee and thus kept a distance from them all. She listened to complaints, prowled the whole area at unexpected times, rewarded top performance with raises, and fired the lazy, the indifferent, the thieves, and the liars.
I was proud of the job she was doing, and at the same time felt a little uncomfortable with it. She was a paragon. And she was making a hell of a lot of money for the chain.
On growth pg 101: ...an article about Florida population. We're getting a thousand new residents a day. Permanent residents. A little family every six minutes. In the public restaurants of Florida, one and a half million people can have a sit-down mean at the same time. We're the seventh largest state. We get thirty-eight million tourists a year. And the rivers and the swamps are dying, the birds are dying, the fish are dying. They're paving the whole state. And the people who give a damn can't be heard. The developers make big campaign contributions. And there isn't enough money to treat the sewage.
pg 108 Florida was second rate, flashy and cheap and tacky and noisy. The water supply was failing. The developers were moving in on the marshlands and estuaries, pleading new economic growth. The commercial fishermen were an endangered species. Miami was the world's murder capital. Phosphate and fruit trucks were pounding the tired old roads into bubble. Droughts of increasing severity were browning the landscape. Wary folks stayed off the unlighted beaches and dimly lighted streets at night, fearing the minority knife, the ethnic club the bullet from the stolen gun. And yet....and yet...
pg 198 And Robinette has a case of what you professional people call satyriasis. You'd have been screwed lame by now, conscious or unconscious, sitting, kneeling, lying down, or standing on one leg. You'd walk funny for a week. And I didn't touch you, except to tote you from my pickup to your bed.
Copyrighted in 1982 amazingly prescient.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 22, 2019
4.5 Stars
One of my favourite McGees, due mostly to the extraordinary final 1/4 in the jungles of the Yucatan.
Very good start and final climax. The middle is sometimes a bit repetitive and long-winded.
As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.
It's been 20 years since MacDonald started writing his Travis McGee series, a time machine for me, a slow motion collapse into the greed and pollution of the American dream. The slow, progressive destruction of Florida is heartbreaking. MacDonald ranted more and more strongly in the first ten years or so, and less so now. A surrender of spirit? Despair?
Earth Spoiler:
One nice thing as the book starts, Annie (Free Fall in Crimson) and McGee are still together and solid. McGee grows up in significant ways, but not easily.
Overall, the first and last quarters of the book are superb. The middle half is uneven and repetitive, perhaps as "filler" to make a longer book for the publishers.
22%
1982, It's interesting that McGee here describes and considers something that we today call "Road Rage".
-
Hack and Gloria lived in a two-bedroom frame bungalow on a county road a long way east of the city. They had an acre of flatland, two big banyan trees near the house...
Full size image here
Her mother talks about Norma as a teenager:
Her world was four and a half billion years old, and she had a vocabulary newly full of strike-slip faults, cactoliths, andesite, and monzonite, and she made tilting slipping shapes with her hands to show us how the mountains came about.
82%
There is a wonderful trip into the jungles of the Yucatan, south of Tulum, in an area I know. Extraordinary and thrilling. What a pleasant surprise!
Full size image here
Tulum in the Yucatan
Full size image here
The last 1/4 of this book takes place in Mexico on the Yucatan peninsula. It's superb and completely authentic. The action and climax are thrilling, the imagery wonderful.
Notes and quotes:
I've been scuba diving ("drift diving") just off the island of Cozumel many times. The best diving I’ve ever had, not to mention the best seafood every night.
Transients flow back and forth across the country, and up and down the coasts. They are of little moment. They become the unidentified bones in abandoned orchards. Dumb, dreary, runaway girls are hustled into the dark woods, and their dental-work pictures go into the files. As the years do their work, shallow graves become deep graves, and very few of the thousands upon thousands are ever discovered. Burial without the box, without the marker, hasty dirt packed down onto the ghastliness of the ultimate grin.
-
She walked toward us in the bright shadow of morning, in a flow of side light, her skin the shade of coffee with cream, or of cinnamon, fine-grained, with a matte finish, flawless and lovely.
-
"You smell like cinnamon and you have the right color. Cinnamon skin."
"My God, McGee, can't you come up with something more original?"
"I thought it was."
She laughed. "It's a song, you idiot. Piel Canela: Cinnamon Skin. They sing it all over Mexico. A love ballad, quite tender. You can ask any group of mariachis, and they will play it and sing it for you."
-
Meyer said it was going to get up to a hundred and five again by midafternoon. It was the fourth day of the heat wave. A lot of old people were dying, he said. They didn't dare leave windows open because the feral children would climb in, terrorize them, and take anything hockable. Their windows were nailed shut. They sat in heat of a hundred and twenty with their bare feet in pans of water, fanning themselves, collapsing, dying. They cou1dn't afford the cost of air conditioning or, in many cases, the cost of running an electric fan. From where they died, from anywhere in the city, the giant office towers of the seven sisters of the oil industry were invisible.
Bonus. From the 1970 "Darker Than Amber" movie starring Rod Taylor, pictures of the producers' ideas of McGee's "The Busted Flush":
Full size image here
Full size image here
Full size image here
And finally, two great blogs about John D. MacDonald, McGee and the rumoured-never-written novel where McGee dies"...
The Birth of Travis McGee (fascinating)
http://thetrapofsolidgold.blogspot.co...
"Black Border for McGee" (rumours surrounding a final book, never published)
http://thetrapofsolidgold.blogspot.co...
.
One of my favourite McGees, due mostly to the extraordinary final 1/4 in the jungles of the Yucatan.
Very good start and final climax. The middle is sometimes a bit repetitive and long-winded.
As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.
It's been 20 years since MacDonald started writing his Travis McGee series, a time machine for me, a slow motion collapse into the greed and pollution of the American dream. The slow, progressive destruction of Florida is heartbreaking. MacDonald ranted more and more strongly in the first ten years or so, and less so now. A surrender of spirit? Despair?
Earth Spoiler:
One nice thing as the book starts, Annie (Free Fall in Crimson) and McGee are still together and solid. McGee grows up in significant ways, but not easily.
Overall, the first and last quarters of the book are superb. The middle half is uneven and repetitive, perhaps as "filler" to make a longer book for the publishers.
22%
1982, It's interesting that McGee here describes and considers something that we today call "Road Rage".
-
Hack and Gloria lived in a two-bedroom frame bungalow on a county road a long way east of the city. They had an acre of flatland, two big banyan trees near the house...
Full size image here
Her mother talks about Norma as a teenager:
Her world was four and a half billion years old, and she had a vocabulary newly full of strike-slip faults, cactoliths, andesite, and monzonite, and she made tilting slipping shapes with her hands to show us how the mountains came about.
82%
There is a wonderful trip into the jungles of the Yucatan, south of Tulum, in an area I know. Extraordinary and thrilling. What a pleasant surprise!
Full size image here
Tulum in the Yucatan
Full size image here
The last 1/4 of this book takes place in Mexico on the Yucatan peninsula. It's superb and completely authentic. The action and climax are thrilling, the imagery wonderful.
Notes and quotes:
I've been scuba diving ("drift diving") just off the island of Cozumel many times. The best diving I’ve ever had, not to mention the best seafood every night.
Transients flow back and forth across the country, and up and down the coasts. They are of little moment. They become the unidentified bones in abandoned orchards. Dumb, dreary, runaway girls are hustled into the dark woods, and their dental-work pictures go into the files. As the years do their work, shallow graves become deep graves, and very few of the thousands upon thousands are ever discovered. Burial without the box, without the marker, hasty dirt packed down onto the ghastliness of the ultimate grin.
-
She walked toward us in the bright shadow of morning, in a flow of side light, her skin the shade of coffee with cream, or of cinnamon, fine-grained, with a matte finish, flawless and lovely.
-
"You smell like cinnamon and you have the right color. Cinnamon skin."
"My God, McGee, can't you come up with something more original?"
"I thought it was."
She laughed. "It's a song, you idiot. Piel Canela: Cinnamon Skin. They sing it all over Mexico. A love ballad, quite tender. You can ask any group of mariachis, and they will play it and sing it for you."
-
Meyer said it was going to get up to a hundred and five again by midafternoon. It was the fourth day of the heat wave. A lot of old people were dying, he said. They didn't dare leave windows open because the feral children would climb in, terrorize them, and take anything hockable. Their windows were nailed shut. They sat in heat of a hundred and twenty with their bare feet in pans of water, fanning themselves, collapsing, dying. They cou1dn't afford the cost of air conditioning or, in many cases, the cost of running an electric fan. From where they died, from anywhere in the city, the giant office towers of the seven sisters of the oil industry were invisible.
Bonus. From the 1970 "Darker Than Amber" movie starring Rod Taylor, pictures of the producers' ideas of McGee's "The Busted Flush":
Full size image here
Full size image here
Full size image here
And finally, two great blogs about John D. MacDonald, McGee and the rumoured-never-written novel where McGee dies"...
The Birth of Travis McGee (fascinating)
http://thetrapofsolidgold.blogspot.co...
"Black Border for McGee" (rumours surrounding a final book, never published)
http://thetrapofsolidgold.blogspot.co...
.
December 2, 2012
Another breathtaking adventure of Travis McGee down Yucatan, Mexico with an economist friend Meyer. Hunting the hunters of women..... a big, bad, predator. A jack-of-all-trades, a con man whom able to device his guiles to ensnare vulnerable women, and used his charisma as a gambit then kill them for it.
His motive:
He's a hunter a loner, and women are the game he specializes. A man who seems affable, agreeable, gregarious, fun to have around. That is his act. That is his camouflage suit, and every move calculated. The money is important to him only because it gives him the freedom to keep hunting. ~~~Travis McGee~~~~
When Meyer an econommist.....Travis McGee's friend ask his help to look into his Maynard Keynes boat who was blown with a huge explosion bits and pieces left by some terrorist down his niece, and newly-wed husband Evan Lawrence with it.
Doubtful McGee started to suspect that its not the terrorist who blow-away Meyers boat, but its just a red herring to conceal a crime. He realizes that he has to entrap this dangerous killer with the help of Meyer, and Barbara.
His motive:
He's a hunter a loner, and women are the game he specializes. A man who seems affable, agreeable, gregarious, fun to have around. That is his act. That is his camouflage suit, and every move calculated. The money is important to him only because it gives him the freedom to keep hunting. ~~~Travis McGee~~~~
When Meyer an econommist.....Travis McGee's friend ask his help to look into his Maynard Keynes boat who was blown with a huge explosion bits and pieces left by some terrorist down his niece, and newly-wed husband Evan Lawrence with it.
Doubtful McGee started to suspect that its not the terrorist who blow-away Meyers boat, but its just a red herring to conceal a crime. He realizes that he has to entrap this dangerous killer with the help of Meyer, and Barbara.
July 2, 2011
I do not remember which Travis McGee mystery I read first, but I can assure you I read them all. I remember this color in MacDonald's color-themed mysteries--but that only means it was probably a more recent one. There was something comforting about returning over and over again to his world on the water, on the Busted Flush, his houseboat in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I liked his best friend Meyer, the economist, his neighbor, on the John Maynard Keynes. Meyer was as well-known and well-regarded an academic as Travis was unknown and anonymous. There may not been many variations in character or plot, but I loved the consistency of this man and his friend in a world that never stopped changing, from the 1960s to the 1980s. For me, first there was Travis McGee, then Spenser, and then Harry Bosch.
July 18, 2024
I knew I had read this book before, but didn't remember when, I thought it was much earlier in the 80s, so didn't expect to see it here on this list. First time I've read him in many years, and I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It has all the things I remember from the McGee books: every character, no matter how minor, gets their own story and real description, none are cardboard. McGee & Meyer are always making some general comment about the state of the world, some hold up better than others after 30 years, and there's plenty of action, though McGee is always more about figuring and manipulating character than using violence. This one had a great ending, a good story while they are tracking down the bad guy, and not enough Florida.
Update after 3rd reading: I didn't find the ending as satisfactory as I did earlier.
Update after 3rd reading: I didn't find the ending as satisfactory as I did earlier.
April 9, 2011
I've read all of this series and loved every one. I read them in order - I always read a series in order, in fact, I'm compulsive about it - because I like to follow the character's life and the author's writing as they both grow. Mr. MacDonald never disappointed - each one is a great thrill ride and they got better each time. Read my review on "The Deep Blue Good-by" (from Wikipedia) to meet Travis, and get ready for some great reading!
September 23, 2022
Though not a fan of murder mysteries, I did enjoy John D. Macdonald’s “Cinnamon Skin.” Macdonald was a very prolific author, publishing during four decades, beginning in the 1950’s. “Cinnamon Skin” features his famous Detective Travis McKee. Set in Florida, McKee’s home base, the story follows the investigation into the deaths of three people, including the niece of his best friend, Meyer. I dislike outguessing the detective in most mysteries but in this book I enjoyed watching him turn over one stone and then another. Of course, there was the expected confrontation scene, and the violence that I prefer not to watch. But Macdonald is a master storyteller, and this one was peopled with a variety of colorful characters as McKee chased clues in various locales. I’m glad I read it, but I can leave his other 69 books unread. I’m partial to authors like Elizabeth Strout, Barbara Kingsolver, Maggie O’Farrell.
May 10, 2020
Travis McGee is a great character. This book is entertaining all the way through.
December 28, 2022
You have probably heard of the “Bad Sex in Fiction Award” given each year by the Literary Review in the UK: https://literaryreview.co.uk/bad-sex-...
This book has a nomination-worthy scene; a pity it’s 40 years too late.
“We sat on the bed and sipped the spritzers and grinned at each other. Finally we set them aside, and I took all of her out of her scraps of bikini, admired her every inch at close and loving range, and in due time, with knowing effort, set her to hooting and whimpering and finally sighing deeply and long.”
-Cinnamon Skin, by John D. MacDonald, Chapter One, Page 5
Does it get better? The book, no.
The book glitters like a shiny relic, caught in amber, capturing the 1970s when World War Two vets wrote genre novels lusting after Jane Fonda and others her age, women young enough to be their daughters.
This travelogue contains a novel, but we only see the villain in the last few pages, and with scant details. This is mostly 'On the Road' plus a few plane flights. The quest: find the guy who changes his name and kills women for Freudian reasons.
I would give the book one star except for the character descriptions, which are punchy, memorable, and fun. Not recommended, but my book club gave me no choice but to read it.
This book has a nomination-worthy scene; a pity it’s 40 years too late.
“We sat on the bed and sipped the spritzers and grinned at each other. Finally we set them aside, and I took all of her out of her scraps of bikini, admired her every inch at close and loving range, and in due time, with knowing effort, set her to hooting and whimpering and finally sighing deeply and long.”
-Cinnamon Skin, by John D. MacDonald, Chapter One, Page 5
Does it get better? The book, no.
The book glitters like a shiny relic, caught in amber, capturing the 1970s when World War Two vets wrote genre novels lusting after Jane Fonda and others her age, women young enough to be their daughters.
This travelogue contains a novel, but we only see the villain in the last few pages, and with scant details. This is mostly 'On the Road' plus a few plane flights. The quest: find the guy who changes his name and kills women for Freudian reasons.
I would give the book one star except for the character descriptions, which are punchy, memorable, and fun. Not recommended, but my book club gave me no choice but to read it.
Read
April 7, 2009my favorite writer.Tells stories in a very realistic way,not your typical hero.
February 20, 2018
Se čtením jsem začal fakt hodně brzo, což mělo za následek, že jsem se ke spoustě autorů dostal moc brzo. Čili jsem Travise McGeeho četl někdy kolem patnácti let a v té době jsem to bral jako klasickou drsnou školu. Zajímala mě akce, hlášky, občas nějaké kozy a tak dále.
Vrátil jsem se k němu teprve letos… a zatraceně mě to překvapilo, jak je to dospělá, nehysterická a stále moderní detektivka. Jak málo od doby svého vzniku zestárla. Hlavně je to v tom, že MacDonaldovi obrovsky fungují postavy. Nejsou vyloženě jednorozměrné. Princezna v ohrožení je tak trochu děvka. Hlavní hrdina je sice rytíř bez bázně a hany, ale zároveň má odpor k závazkům a s tím vyplývající depky z marnosti života. I o světě kolem tu autor skrz svého hrdinu neuvažuje jen v rovině cynické hlášky, ale fakt se snaží o něm přemýšlet a k něčemu dojít. Ani dialogy tu nejsou postavené na hláškách nebo na šoku, ale jsou civilní, přesvědčivé a budují věrohodné postavy. Když se postava hroutí, není to na efekt. Všechno je to hodně tlumené a podehrávané. A líbilo se mi i to, že hrdina nemusí být za každou cenu nejchytřejší v místnosti. Naopak, jeho „watson“ je často ten, který posunuje vyšetřování. Nebo i obyčejný polda, se kterým si hrdina promluví.
Pokud bych něco považoval spíš za nevýhodu je to, že to často není příliš detektivka. V Tmavší než jantar je v podstatě všechno od začátku jasné a jen to míří ke svému cíli. Chybí i nějaká finální konfrontace s padouchy. I ve Skořicové pleti je od první třetiny jasné, kdo za tím vězí – pak už se jen hledá a zjišťuje se, co všechno má na svědomí. Jen Dlouhý levandulový pohled má nějaké odhalení pachatele. Ale ono o to fakt ani moc nejde. Jde to tu atmosféru, o melancholický pocit, o charaktery.
Ale asi díky tomu, že MacDonald nemá velký tah na bránu, nikdy u nás moc nevycházel. Tedy, něco vyšlo po revoluci, ale v naprosto děsivém překladu lidí, nad kterými by i google překladač ohrnul nos. Škoda. MacDonald je autorem dospělých románů drsné školy.
Vrátil jsem se k němu teprve letos… a zatraceně mě to překvapilo, jak je to dospělá, nehysterická a stále moderní detektivka. Jak málo od doby svého vzniku zestárla. Hlavně je to v tom, že MacDonaldovi obrovsky fungují postavy. Nejsou vyloženě jednorozměrné. Princezna v ohrožení je tak trochu děvka. Hlavní hrdina je sice rytíř bez bázně a hany, ale zároveň má odpor k závazkům a s tím vyplývající depky z marnosti života. I o světě kolem tu autor skrz svého hrdinu neuvažuje jen v rovině cynické hlášky, ale fakt se snaží o něm přemýšlet a k něčemu dojít. Ani dialogy tu nejsou postavené na hláškách nebo na šoku, ale jsou civilní, přesvědčivé a budují věrohodné postavy. Když se postava hroutí, není to na efekt. Všechno je to hodně tlumené a podehrávané. A líbilo se mi i to, že hrdina nemusí být za každou cenu nejchytřejší v místnosti. Naopak, jeho „watson“ je často ten, který posunuje vyšetřování. Nebo i obyčejný polda, se kterým si hrdina promluví.
Pokud bych něco považoval spíš za nevýhodu je to, že to často není příliš detektivka. V Tmavší než jantar je v podstatě všechno od začátku jasné a jen to míří ke svému cíli. Chybí i nějaká finální konfrontace s padouchy. I ve Skořicové pleti je od první třetiny jasné, kdo za tím vězí – pak už se jen hledá a zjišťuje se, co všechno má na svědomí. Jen Dlouhý levandulový pohled má nějaké odhalení pachatele. Ale ono o to fakt ani moc nejde. Jde to tu atmosféru, o melancholický pocit, o charaktery.
Ale asi díky tomu, že MacDonald nemá velký tah na bránu, nikdy u nás moc nevycházel. Tedy, něco vyšlo po revoluci, ale v naprosto děsivém překladu lidí, nad kterými by i google překladač ohrnul nos. Škoda. MacDonald je autorem dospělých románů drsné školy.
January 14, 2023
Travis McGee, "salvage consultant" and hard-boiled hero, decides to help out his friend Meyer after Meyer's boat is blown up, with 3 people, including his recently wed niece, on board. This puts them on the trail of the niece's husband, a trail that leads to Texas and Mexico, where they try to piece together the events that led to the tragedy.
As in all books in the series, Travis is not lacking for female companionship (while still being essentially a lone wolf), and there are a lot of descriptions of Florida, which even then (1982) was being despoiled by developers and time-share salesmen. Also lots of descriptions of bars, motels, and a lot of washed-up, world-weary characters. The last part of the book takes place in Mexico and I enjoyed the opportunity for armchair travel. I also like the character of Meyer, the intellectual, the cerebral economist who reads The Financial Times while Travis oils his gun. Somehow the friendship between these 2 men, so different in outlook, skills and background, works as a narrative device.
As in all books in the series, Travis is not lacking for female companionship (while still being essentially a lone wolf), and there are a lot of descriptions of Florida, which even then (1982) was being despoiled by developers and time-share salesmen. Also lots of descriptions of bars, motels, and a lot of washed-up, world-weary characters. The last part of the book takes place in Mexico and I enjoyed the opportunity for armchair travel. I also like the character of Meyer, the intellectual, the cerebral economist who reads The Financial Times while Travis oils his gun. Somehow the friendship between these 2 men, so different in outlook, skills and background, works as a narrative device.
January 3, 2025
This was probably the longest book of JDM’s I have ever read and the strangest too. It wasn’t a typical Travis McGee novel either. The locations were all over the planet. Texas, New England, Mexico and even South America and Florida. I only gave it 4 stars because it stunk on occasions.
Not only that there wasn’t a whole lot of fishing, and I’m a Fool for Fishing 🤣 and that but my mind and heart isn’t wired to good right now since my Sally Face (a mixed breed rescued Dog and best friend next to my wife) is sick and really not doing well. Y’all say some prayers for her. I truly would appreciate it.
Oh, I read this on Libby
Not only that there wasn’t a whole lot of fishing, and I’m a Fool for Fishing 🤣 and that but my mind and heart isn’t wired to good right now since my Sally Face (a mixed breed rescued Dog and best friend next to my wife) is sick and really not doing well. Y’all say some prayers for her. I truly would appreciate it.
Oh, I read this on Libby
June 27, 2025
I can't rate JD with anything but five stars, he makes me so happy! So this is the twentieth book in the Travis McGee series, and having read the others in order, I'm reading the last one now, the next one after this one. He (Travis, AKA JD) has many compelling things to say about death in all of his books, but now that we're coming close to the time of his own death (from complications of heart surgery) the insights seem prophetical. One thing he says in that book: Everyone is an expert in their own death.
But the writing, the wit, the cultural insight; can't put downable. if you haven't read JD, you are missing out bigtime!🙂
But the writing, the wit, the cultural insight; can't put downable. if you haven't read JD, you are missing out bigtime!🙂
June 15, 2017
In this, the second last in the series, McGee's trusty friend still recovering from his clash with Dirty Bob in the prior novel now finds his houseboat destroyed in an apparent terrorist attack and his niece & her husband who were aboard are killed. Meyer goes to Travis for help and a cross country adventure and investigation ensues.
Smoothly flowing novel, asides from the absence of modern technology it's hard to tell it's nearly 40 years old.
Smoothly flowing novel, asides from the absence of modern technology it's hard to tell it's nearly 40 years old.
November 19, 2019
Meyer is pretty much self-sufficient. He lives on his boat, does his consulting work, and keeps Travis McGee company. But this time, in Cinnamon Skin, Meyer needs McGee's help in figuring out how and why his niece was killed in an explosion on his boat, The John Maynard Keynes.
MacDonald starts out this McGee series book with the phrase: There are no hundred percent heroes. We learn at the conclusion that McGee and Meyer do some things that neither really want to do, but by circumstance are compelled to do.
MacDonald starts out this McGee series book with the phrase: There are no hundred percent heroes. We learn at the conclusion that McGee and Meyer do some things that neither really want to do, but by circumstance are compelled to do.
June 7, 2020
I love the Travis McGee series. I'm only one book away for finishing all 21 books for the 3rd time. Great mysteries and McGee and Meyer are fantastic characters. Today McGee is seems somewhat sexist but for his day, was downright chivalrous.
April 4, 2014
Starts with a bang, ends with a whimper. While Meyer is lecturing out of the country, someone blows up his tubby but famously named little cruiser, "The John Maynard Keynes," killing his niece & her husband on their honeymoon, plus the captain/fishing guide. Poor gentle Meyer still is traumatized from his encounter with a monster in McGee No#19, and losing both his longtime home and his only living blood relative in an explosive white flash of light may be two emotional blows too many. So--when it turns out that $315K of the niece’s hard-earned savings have disappeared and the affable hubbie might not have been on board the Keynes at all when it blew up, Meyer embarks on a quest to repair his broken self-image. Naturally, knight-in-tarnished-armor Travis McGee goes along to help Meyer track down a murderous chameleon who appears to be a 1980s version of Bluebeard.
This late in the series, McGee & Meyer now worry about and pick at each other like an old married couple. A lot of the dark, dangerous edge seems to have worn off the aging McGee, and his boat-bum lifestyle has begun to seem a bit silly--both to himself and to his current girlfriend, sensible Naples hotel manager Annie Renzetti. Author John D. MacDonald seems to have slowed down, too, maybe gotten a bit tired and lazy. Several minor characters have long expository speeches in CINNAMON SKIN, and they mostly sound just like the novel’s narrative voice, bit players barren of their own individuality and regionalism. The psychopathic prey of Meyer & McGee and (late in the story) the owner of that “cinnamon skin” (p303) is every bit as dangerous as Junior Allen, Boone Waxwell or Dezmin Grizzel, but the hunt and final confrontation are oddly without tension.
This late in the series, McGee & Meyer now worry about and pick at each other like an old married couple. A lot of the dark, dangerous edge seems to have worn off the aging McGee, and his boat-bum lifestyle has begun to seem a bit silly--both to himself and to his current girlfriend, sensible Naples hotel manager Annie Renzetti. Author John D. MacDonald seems to have slowed down, too, maybe gotten a bit tired and lazy. Several minor characters have long expository speeches in CINNAMON SKIN, and they mostly sound just like the novel’s narrative voice, bit players barren of their own individuality and regionalism. The psychopathic prey of Meyer & McGee and (late in the story) the owner of that “cinnamon skin” (p303) is every bit as dangerous as Junior Allen, Boone Waxwell or Dezmin Grizzel, but the hunt and final confrontation are oddly without tension.
Read
August 2, 2011Cinnamon Skin is the next-to-last installment of the Travis McGee series.
I loved it!
WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD!
First and foremost, how wonderful to see Meyer back to his old self, and how nice to see most of the intrigue and drama staged locally. I love that the John D MacDonald has taken me all over the world, but so close to the end of the series, it's a comfort to see Travis returning to his roots - helping out a good friend with a mostly-local problem.
It broke my heart when Meyer's boat blew up! But in a way, it really helped bring Meyer back into things and certainly helped the development of his character and his relationship with Travis in a way I thought it would have gone volumes ago. :)
The excitement was taut all the way through, and just when I thought I had it all figured out, there was an unforeseen - but not terribly outrageous - plot twist thrown in. I had such a hard time putting this one down! The end was incredibly satisfying, with Meyer doing in the bad guy.
The last few lines of the book tickled me as well, making me want to start the next volume immediately. If I hadn't been so sick these last few days, I would probably be halfway through it by now.
It's hard to say if this installment has overtaken A Deadly Shade of Gold as my favorite Travis book - it's been so long since I read that one. I think I might have to re-read my three favorites in a row and see which one really is the best. Consider it a playoff match. :)
I loved it!
WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD!
First and foremost, how wonderful to see Meyer back to his old self, and how nice to see most of the intrigue and drama staged locally. I love that the John D MacDonald has taken me all over the world, but so close to the end of the series, it's a comfort to see Travis returning to his roots - helping out a good friend with a mostly-local problem.
It broke my heart when Meyer's boat blew up! But in a way, it really helped bring Meyer back into things and certainly helped the development of his character and his relationship with Travis in a way I thought it would have gone volumes ago. :)
The excitement was taut all the way through, and just when I thought I had it all figured out, there was an unforeseen - but not terribly outrageous - plot twist thrown in. I had such a hard time putting this one down! The end was incredibly satisfying, with Meyer doing in the bad guy.
The last few lines of the book tickled me as well, making me want to start the next volume immediately. If I hadn't been so sick these last few days, I would probably be halfway through it by now.
It's hard to say if this installment has overtaken A Deadly Shade of Gold as my favorite Travis book - it's been so long since I read that one. I think I might have to re-read my three favorites in a row and see which one really is the best. Consider it a playoff match. :)
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