The Scarlet Ruse

Travis McGee #14

by John D. MacDonald

'MacDonald had a huge influence on me . . . Reacher is like a fully detached version of Travis McGee' LEE CHILD

Travis McGee isn't your typical knight in shining armour. He only works when his cash runs out, and his rule is simple: He'll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half.

An expert stamp collector is left frantic when he misplaces the extremely valuable collection of an important and shady client. Hirsh doesn't know how he's going to get it back. But fortunately for him, he's got a friend in Travis McGee.

It's not long till Travis is hot on the trail of the missing collection. But Travis is going to have to play this game carefully - Hirsh's client is liable to break some fingers if he doesn't get what he's owed . . .

First published in 1972, The Scarlet Ruse features an introduction by Lee Child

JOHN D. MACDONALD: A GRAND MASTER CRIME WRITER

'The great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller' - Stephen King

'A dominant influence on writers crafting the continuing series character . . . I envy the generation of readers just discovering Travis McGee' - Sue Grafton

'The consummate pro, a master storyteller and witty observer . . . The Travis McGee novels are among the finest works of fiction ever penned by an American author and they retain a remarkable sense of freshness' - Jonathan Kellerman

'. . . my favorite novelist of all time' - Dean Koontz

'A master storyteller, a masterful suspense writer . . . John D. MacDonald is a shining example for all of us in the field' - Mary Higgins Clark

'What a joy that these timeless and treasured novels are available again' - Ed McBain

'There's only one thing as good as reading a John D. MacDonald novel: reading it again . . . He is the all-time master of the American mystery novel' - John Saul

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Detective, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Suspense

338 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 1972

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

[Kemper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to this one and Lawrence Block’s Keller series, I know more about philately then I ever thought I would.

Travis McGee is coming off of one of his periodic retirements and looking for a new salvage gig in which he’ll try to recover items that people were scammed out of for half their value. His client this time is a stamp dealer named Hirsh who puts together collections for people looking to use them as investments. Hirsh had been working with Frank Sprenger who is well-connected to the kind of people you don’t want to double cross lest you find yourself sharing an oil drum with Jimmy Hoffa.

Unfortunately, the dealer got a look at the collection he’s been buying for Sprenger during his last transaction, and someone swapped the rare stamps for junk despite the display book being kept in a locked safe deposit box that requires that both of them access it together. Their agreement leaves Hirsh on the hook to reimburse Frank and since this would bankrupt him he’s desperately trying to learn how it was done and who was responsible before Frank figures out that something is wrong. Suspects include Hirsh’s two assistants, and it also seems possible that Frank could have been running some elaborate con to get the stamps as well as clean Hirsh out.

Travis also has other things on his mind since the Lauderdale city council has just passed a measure designed to make living on a house boat illegal so he has to decide whether he’ll become a landlubber or move his beloved Busted Flush to a new permanent berth. Since this is a Travis McGee book we’re talking about, there also has to be a lady for him to romance and his latest victim candidate is Hirsh’s assistant Mary Alice.

I was having a fun time with this one through the first half of it as Travis tried to figure out how the stamps could have been switched as well as checking into Sprenger’s background. As always, half of what I like is McGee’s inner monologues about various aspects of the modern life of his time. Since the series was well into the 1970s by then, the sexism was toned down to a more tolerable level then many of the previous installments.

But things go downhill in a hurry once the book shifts to the romance with Mary Alice, and McGee seems to develop a terminal case of the stupids. For being a guy who lives by his wits and much has been made about his instincts for reading people, Travis comes across as a complete dumb ass in this one. He somehow falls for Mary Alice despite her being a sociopath, and he completely misreads what’s going on with Sprenger. MacDonald does a decent job of dropping some hints about Mary Alice’s true nature along the way, but once the realization is made, any hint of subtly or pretense is gone. She’s seems stupid and obvious after this point so it makes McGee seem incredibly gullible for not picking up on it sooner.

It’s somewhat redeemed by a decent last act that features a fairly tense action scene, but it’s far from the best example of this series.

As always when I review a Travis McGee book, I urge people to check out Amanda's review on the old Sea Cock, but she’s not a fan so don’t read it if criticism makes you angry or you don’t have a sense of humor.

And because this title demands it, here’s an exchange from Archer.

Rip Riley: I'm setting the autopilot, but this better not be a ruse.

Sterling Archer: A ruse? Brrring, brrring. Hello. Hi, it's the 1930's. Can we have our words and clothes and shitty airplane back?

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Travis McGee is a salvage expert. Here’s how it works in his words:

“I try to recover items of value which have been lost and which cannot be found by any other means. If I decide to help you, I will risk my time and expenses. If I make a recovery of all or part of what you have lost, we take my expenses off the top and split the remainder down the middle.”

His friend and houseboat neighbor Meyer is a doctor of economics and had the renaissance curiosity of Freakonomics 30 years before Freakonmics was published.

MacDonald’s 1972 publication and 14th Travis McGee is about …

Stamps.

Yep, McGee is caught up in a mystery involving stamp collecting, philately, stamp investing and a lot of dangerous hijinks. Travis’s client explains to him, and the readers, about how valuable some very rare stamps can be.

MacDonald’s ability to convey accurate and moving characterizations is spot on and his libertarian asides are golden. This is an exciting and fun novel.

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It's always better when you don't have to give a damn."
- John D. MacDonald, The Scarlet Ruse



If Philatelic Beach Noir is your gig, this book is for you. I guess in the age (1972) before block chain technology and Bitcoins, stamps seem a very likely avenue for moving large amounts of money from one country to the next. MacDonald flushes this idea out and weaves into it: the Mob, women, and Meyer (a trusty economist friend). MacDonald is hanging out in Florida, which usually is my favorite setting for the owner of the Busted Flush.

The plot is interesting and novel, the characters are round, and MacDonald nails the details. I enjoyed it and don't remember being too turned off by MacDonald's usual treatment of women.

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit that I actually do not remember all that much specific detail with regard to this Travis McGee adventure except that because once again, in John D. MacDonald's The Scarlet Ruse, there is not enough of McGee's sidekick and best friend Meyer present and extant (at least for me personally), I rather quickly began to lose interest and become somewhat bored and distracted. For it is really and truly the case with basically ALL of the Travis McGee novels I have read to date, that while I to a point enjoy reading about the main protagonist, Travis McGee (his exploits, his worldview, his many adventures and misadventures, although the rather constant machoism and sexism does at times begin to wear a bit thin), if his best friend and foil Meyer, the brilliant and understated PhD in economics (who as a literary character I not only enjoy but actually am very much and deeply enamoured of with a lasting and serious literary crush) does not appear consistently and enough, I simply and yes very quickly begin to experience reading tedium (and while in The Scarlet Ruse I seem to remember that Travis McGee is actually saved from certain death by Meyer and then nursed back to health by a character from the past, from the very first Travis McGee novel, The Deep Blue Good-Bye, these facts do not really save the novel from being rather tedious and long winded without my best literary friend Meyer and his astute observation and ideas constantly present). Two and a half stars, rounded up to three stars, as I also feel I do not sufficiently recall enough of the specific plot of The Scarlet Ruse to be curmudgeonly, although I do indeed remember my disappointment when I picked up this novel in the late 80s and realised that Meyer was a little too absent for much of the time for me to truly and happily enjoy this fourteenth instalment of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee novels.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars. Excellent!

A very good Travis McGee. Great pacing, good tension, clever plot. Perhaps more "ranting" from MacDonald about how we are screwing up the planet, but remember this was written in 1971 - almost prescient for that time. Worth reading even the rants.

As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.

25% Excellent so far

67% At 2-3 places, I feel MacDonald stretches the plot's credibility too far. Travis' and Mary Alice's behaviours get dragged along.

80% plot only apparently stretched! Awesome! A McGee puzzle test to understand which pieces of the puzzle fit and which don't. Marvellous!

Great climax



Sprenger's .243 Winchester Special

Full size image here

Lots of very, very good Quotes:

From the famous, extraordinary Carlos Castaneda (at least books 1-4):
I have learned that the countless paths that one traverses in one's life are all equal. Oppressors and oppressed meet at the end, and the only thing that prevails is that life was altogether too short for both.
-Don Juan as quoted by Castaneda
-

We looked at each other. The blue eyes seemed to get bigger, just big enough to let me in. I had the feeling I was reaching down into that blueness, to where something had gone click, startling both of us. I heard her breath catch, and then she took a deep deep breath, looking away as she did so, breaking the unexpected contact.
-
My best guess was that the girl was on the edge of leaving for good. And in some city as yet unknown, she would be studied with great care by experts. And if they were to decide it was merchandise worth salvage, she might indeed be beaten into total submission, cleaned up, dressed up, trained, and marketed for a few years. The merchandising experts cruise the bus terminals, and they watch the downtown streets for young girls carrying suitcases or packs. Impersonal appraisal. No uggos, no fatties, no gimps, no rich kids, nothing too too young.
-
Julio nearly fell in while freeing my lines, because he couldn't take his eyes off Mary Alice. He radiated a Worshipful approval. She had about seven inches and thirty-five pounds on him, and he was doubtless imagining walking her through his neighborhood on Sunday morning, dressed in their best, as if Snow White had finally made up her mind and decided on one of the dwarfs.

Remember, this is from MacDonald writing in 1971:

...so divide everything into two hundred million equal parts. Everything in this country that is fabricated. Steel mills, speedboats, cross-country power lines, scalpels, watch bands, fish rods, ski poles, plywood, storage batteries, everything. Break it down into basic raw materials and then compute the power requirements and the fossil fuels needed to make everybody's share in this country. Know what happens if you apply that formula to all the peoples of all the other nations of the world? "You come up against a bleak fact, Travis. There is not enough material on and in the planet to ever give them what we're used to. The emerging nations are not going to emerge-not into our pattern at least. Not ever. We've hogged it all. Technology won't come up with a way to crowd the Yangtze River with Mucequitas. ... And so they want theirs now. just like ours, God help them. And what is the only thing we can say? 'Sorry. You're a little too late. We used it all up, all except what we need to keep our toys in repair and running and to replace them when they wear out. Sorry, but that's the way it is.‘ What comes after that? Barbarism, an interregnum, a new dark ages, and another start a thousand years from now with a few million people on the planet? Our myth has been that our standard of living would become available to all the peoples of the world. Myths wear thin. We have a visceral appreciation of the truth. That truth, which we don't dare announce to the world, is what gives us the guilt and the shame and the despair. Nobody in the world will ever live as well, materially, as we once did. And now, as our materialism begins to sicken us, it is precisely what the emerging nations want for themselves. And can never have. Brazil might manage it. But no one else."
-
I set the alarm. Meyer had given the watch to me because it amused him. It does not make a sound. At the specified time, a semi-sharp little metal nub starts popping out of a little hole in the underside of it, stabbing you in the wrist.
-
I went outside, got on my heading, and put it on pilot. She did not want a beer. She did not want a drink. She did not want any conversation, thanks. So I took a beer back and sat on the engine hatch as we roared through the calm sea, tipping and lifting a little in the swell that was just beginning to build. She stood up and leaned her folded arms on the top of the windshield, staring ahead for a long time, standing hipshot with ankles crossed. The light of the dying day was gold and orange. The shore was turning blue-gray, the sea to indigo.
-
A time when I am totally fit and I have just come wading through one of the fringes of hell, have been stressed right to my breaking point, have expected to be whisked out of life, but was not. I am out of it, and if there is any pain, it is too dwindled to notice. I am in some warm place where the air and sea are bright. There are chores to do when I feel like it, but nothing urgent. I am in some remote place where no one can find me and bother me. There is good music when and if I want it. There is a drink I have not yet tasted. There is a scent of some good thing a-cooking slowly. There is a lovely laughing lady, close enough to touch, and there are no tensions between us except the ones which come from need. There is no need to know the day, the month, or the year. We will stay until it is time to go, and we will not know when that time will come until we wake up one day and it is upon us.
-
Meyer expounds to Travis:
He said, "Interesting analogy, about the jigsaw with square pieces and nonobjective art. So you put them together in a way, I suppose, that pleases you, and so you call it the only logical arrangement."
MvGee: "That‘s what I seem to be doing."
Meyer: "It is also an analogy for a madman's view of reality. No rules restrict his assemblage, because they're all square pieces. So he makes a pattern that pleases him, and then he tries to impose it on the world, and they lock him up."
-
He had enough trouble in the form of a wide wife with a voice like a bearing about to go. He worked on the boat all weeklong with her telling him how to do what he was already doing. On Sundays they took a picnic cruise of three hours, and you could hear that voice of hers all the way out to the channel, telling him to watch out for the things he was already watching out for.
-
Yes indeed. I would have truly enjoyed showing her the islands. How the big aluminum plant and the oil refinery of Amerada Hess blacken the stinking skies over St. Croix. Maybe she'd like the San Juan Guayama and Ybucoa areas of Puerto Rico where Commonwealth Oil, Union Carbide, Phillips Petroleum, and Sun Oil have created another new industrial wasteland where the toxic wastes have killed the vegetation, where hot oil effluents are discharged into the sea and flow westward along the shoreline in a black roiling stench, killing all sea life. She might be impressed were Ito cruise into Tallabea Bay and describe to her the one and a half billion tons of untreated wastes from Commonwealth-Union Carbide which put a two-foot coat on the bottom of the bay. Or we could take a tour up into the mountains to watch how the trade winds carry the bourbon-colored stink of petrochemical stacks through the passes all the way to Mayaguez, ninety miles from the refineries. While in the hills, we could check and see if Kennecott Copper and American Metal Climax have started to strip-mine the seven square green tropic miles of high land which they covet.
-
I am apart. Always I have seen around me all the games and parades of life and have always envied the players and the marchers. I watch the cards they play and feel in my belly the hollowness as the big drums go by, and I smile and shrug and say, Who needs games? Who wants parades. The world seems to be masses of smiling people who hug each other and sway back and forth in front of a fire and sing old songs and laugh into each others faces, all truth and trust. And I kneel at the edge of the woods, too far to feel the heat of the fire.
-
Once, just deep enough into the cup to be articulate about subjective things, I tried to tell Meyer all this. I shall never forget the strange expression on his face.
"But we are all like that!" he said. "That's the way it is. For everyone in the world. Didn't you know?"
I tried to believe him. But belief is a very diflicult feat when you crouch out here in the night, too far from the fire to feel its heat, too far from the people to hear the words of their songs.
-
I wondered if she had ever really been able to comprehend the fact of her own eventual and inevitable death. Today, my friends, we each have one day less, every one of us. And joy is the only thing that slows the clock.
-
Bull-shitery from the Book of Mormon, the Book of Ether, chapter three.
'And the Lord said, For behold, ye shall be as a whale in the midst of the sea; for the mountain waves shall dash upon you. Nevertheless, I will bring you up again out of the depths of the sea; for the winds have gone forth out of my mouth, and also the rains and the floods have I sent forth. And behold, I prepare you against these things; for ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea, and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come. Therefore what will you that I should prepare for you that ye may have light when ye are swallowed up in the depths of the sea?'


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...

.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century North American Crime
BOOK 128 (of 250)- Why a second read? Because I recently read #13 (Tan And Sandy Silence) for the first time, and it had the opening paragraph to "Scarlet Ruse" which has a great opening hook, and I wanted to revisit the story. But the same problem the first time around becomes evident quickly: the story itself has little to do with Fort Lauderdale/zoning laws and the payoff for that plot line is too small. ORIGINAL REVIEW stays unchanged:
HOOK - 4 stars: >>>>>"After seven years of bickering and fussing, the Fort Lauderdamndale city fathers, on a hot Tuesday in late August, killed off a life style and turned me into a vagrant." <<<< is the opening line. McGhee and his friends can no longer live in their boats 'within the city limits'. McGhee without his famous Busted Flush boat? In slip F-18? And his friends, including Meyer, must also move, perhaps into one of those massive highrises in which a million or so will get you bottom floor, 900 square feet, if that, and at 1970s prices. (You're looking at $10 million just to LOOK at anything in Ft. Lauderdale these days.) Then, shortly, we get to an interesting plot: an impossible crime in which original and very expensive stamps have been switched for cheap ones. It's a parallel opener: 2 sets of people/things are set to change. And it's a very good opener.
PACE- 2: The impossible crime of switching stamps is solved much too early, leaving us wondering about where McGhee might live. He heads to prior hiding out spots, adding nothing new and slowing down the pace.
PLOT -3: Yes, the impossible crime/stamp switch is great, but its solution occurs in the middle of the book. We know too much, too soon. Yet, there is a murder that ramps up the action, for 3 stars. And when Travis goes to the laundry to do the wash, he thinks, "...some women get their loads whiter than mine." Gorgeous shout out to....ummm....you know.
CAST - 4 stars: McGhee is one of the GREATS in American literature. I loved when his female love interest says, "Nobody ought to be sneering at anybody else's love life." Amen. And it seems McGhee takes it to heart, even though he is a fool for love in this story. Meyer is great here as McGhee's second. Miss Agnes, a Rolls Royce/Truck comes into play often. The love interest is a Big Gal, about as big as Travis, and oh she treats her man bad....GREAT cast. Then there are the stamp collectors, and the fake stamp collectors, and all of the bait and switch crime artists...
ATMOSPHERE-3: Fortlauderdamndale? Come on, MacDonald! But there are stamps in locked boxes at banks. Hidden boats....and more...all done nicely. And the murder to be solved...it's an odd one, pointless or not?
SUMMARY: 3.2. Solid McGhee. Not John D. MacDonald's best, not his worst. If you're a fan of McGhee, you'll read this.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the Travis McGee series (I am reading them in order, slowly, and savoring them as I'm all too aware how finite the series is) but this one felt a little flat to me. I'm not sure why--especially because the few prior were really superb. (Or maybe because of that?) THE SCARLET RUSE offers, as many of the books do, insights into a slightly arcane subject matter area: where we've prior learned about, say, real estate financing, this time it's the world of very rare stamp investing. The novel also sees JDM taking his turn at the classic "locked room" theme. And it features a fascinating female lead like none we've seen before in the series. And some nifty (and in the climax unsettling) movement about on Trav's two boats. Why the luke-warm review? The whole is somehow less than the sum of the parts in THE SCARLET RUSE, and the story doesn't have the relentless drive a Travis McGee novel usually does. One chapter even feels like "bullet point" format--maybe JDM himself somehow wasn't so engaged by this installment of the series? I'm looking forward to the next one, however, and, meantime, to be clear, even an average McGee novel is a hell of a read. But I wouldn't say SCARLET is one of the best.

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Number 14 in the Travis McGee series; the third such book I've read, and the last one available at the public library in Arizona. I will certainly have to check the shelves when I go back for a couple of weeks in May!

This story was a bit unusual for me because it dealt with stamp collecting. You don't see that hobby in many books outside of the field itself. But I had fun reading because I used to collect stamps so I was not as confused by some of the terminology as a person who had never collected might have been.

In the previous McGee book I read, he was approached at one point by a girl who asked him if he was pro-football player so and so. This time it was a drunk guy in a bar who asked him the same question. I probably would not have noticed that if I had not skipped from number 5 to number 14. Unless some character asked him that very question in each book? A subject for future study!

I made a comment in my little notebook that there seemed to be more social commentary going on in this book than in the others I read. Such passages threw me off stride, and even though I agreed with some of them, I got a bit of brain-freeze at other times. I just wanted to find out what had happened to the stamps and who was going to be the guilty party.

A good story but I liked the other two better.

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm still reading these in order. I may have enjoyed this 14th book in the series, a little more than others at least in the beginning, because I have been a lifelong philatelist (stamp collector). All the explanations surrounding the world of high-value philately were familiar to me.

Travis McGee on the other hand is not so familiar with it. But he is a quick learner and soon finds himself lodged in a maze of mystery, trying to figure out how a high-value item was switched out for an inferior version. Murder, mob connections in Miami, and of course a dalliance with a girl who is key to the mystery are all there in the plot. McGee sets up a complex ruse to trap a mob leader and enlists his buddy Meyer in a dangerous role. This novel demonstrates Travis is not perfect in his deductions and can get outplayed. The heavy price he pays at the end leads to some introspection as well as a cameo appearance from a client from the past (in fact from the very first book).

[JoAnna Spring · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging, fun summer read. Meyer (the hairy economist philosopher) has an old friend (that is, the friend is an old man) who manages fancy stamp collections. An big book of expensive rare stamps being managed for a mob guy has been mysteriously replaced with a big book of worthless stamps. Trav takes the case, hooks up with an interesting chick, and figures it all out.

It was written in '73 and I am sad at how far it seems we haven't come:

"Meyer made one of his surveys of the elderly couple in the Fort Lauderdale area, the ones being squeezed between the cost of living and their Social Security. They were very bitter about it. They were very accusatory about it. Amurrica should give them the financial dignity they had earned."

Meyer's analysis of the true cause of their dissatisfaction:

"all too many of them were screwed by consumer advertising. Spend, spend, spend. Live for today. So they lived out their lives up to their glottis in time payments. They blew it all on boats and trailers and outboard motors, binoculars and hunting rifles and department store high fashion. They lived life to the hilt, as the ads suggest. Not to the hilt of pleasure, but to the hilt of spending."

... "Now their anger is directed outward, at society, because they don't dare look back and think how pathetically vulnerable they were, how many thousands they blew on toys that broke before they were paid for, and how many thousands on the interest charges to buy those toys. They don't know who screwed them. They did what everybody else was doing."

Over 30 years later and we still don't get it. Combined with this bit, I can completely relate to Trav's mood:

"Suddenly I felt bleak, oddly depressed. It took a moment to realize that one of Meyer's recent lectures on international standards of living was all too well remembered.

'...so divide everything into two hundred million equal parts. Everything in this country that is fabricated. Steel mills, speedboats, cross-country power lines, scalpels, watch bands, fish rods, ski poles, plywood, storage batteries, everything. Break it down into basic raw materials and then compute the power requirements and the fossil fuels needed to make everybody's share in this country. Know what happens if you apply that formula to all the peoples of all other other nations of the world?

'You come up against a bleak fact, Travis. There is not enough material on and in the planet to ever give them what we're used to.'"

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

The closer I get to the end of my time rereading John D. MacDonald's novels the more I'm feeling that the Travis McGee series has not held up as well as MacDonald's noir novels. In this the fourteenth in the McGee series we have Trav doing mostly investigative type work, and the only action comes in the final third when we are treated to another of MacDonald's stellar rollercoaster structured climactic sequences. Not a fan of the long anti-climactic summary ending which follows, so let me tell you what I like about this one. The teasing out of a stamp collecting scam; and then learning all about stamp collecting. Watching the Mary Alice character deconstruct before our eyes by what she says and does. Her stinging dialogue is stunning and brilliantly crafted to reveal character. The edginess between Trav and MA, the jousting, whenever they are in a scene together keeps a live current rippling throughout this novel. MacDonald, the old OSS guy, deploys a lot of his spy craft via McGee and it is fascinating anthropology to follow along as McGee navigates back in the day before cell phones and google and the metaverse. Among the thematic highlights are McGee's declining capabilities, his suffering another near-death beating, and McGee once again throwing Meyer into the path of a scythe wielding reaper. These all foreshadow a series working its way to the end.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The busted Flush is threatened with eviction from Bahia Mar, but it turn out to be a ruse (heh, heh).

The story revolves around mobsters, stamp collecting and investments. In the middle of the book, there is the standard line of live-and-let-live philosophy. But McGee is starting to sound like Spicolli," Good waves and some tasty bud, dude."

The second half of the novel turns interesting with an atypical, snarling, sociopathic female, that plays McGee all to well. Of course, she has to die. This book relies on a fast-paced plot, rather than the wry, ironic writing MacDonald usually displays.

[LeAnne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A page-turner by an excellent writer. A writer who can make "stamp collecting" exciting....actually it was more about investing in very expensive, unique, stamps from around the world. Buy and hold, then sell for six figures. But what happens when the costly stamps are somehow replaced with fakes? Now this is where Travis McGee enters and tries to find and recover them. There is a story behind the story here.

[Jerry B · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Scarlet Ruse” is one of the later (#14 of 21) novels in MacDonald’s famous Travis McGee series, into which we dabble now and then for relief from our heavier fare. This one seemed to appeal a little more than some, as how a scam involving rare stamp collectibles was orchestrated generated a fair degree of suspense and surprise. Travis is hired to salvage some sort of a switch involving similar but worthless stamps for valuable ones, when seemingly the only possible perp’s were the two long-time loyal female employees of the shop owner – pulled off in a safety box vault no less.

As often happens, Travis gets “romantically involved” with one of the clerks – but the plot heats up considerably when the other is murdered. Our hero of course eventually solves all in a fairly exciting finish, for a rather fun outing to read!

[Andrea]

The book began very dramatically... the powers that be in Ft Lauderdale passed a resolution banning permanent habitation on boats. Oh, no! Meyer and Travis are going to be booted off their boats or will have to find a new place to dock. Given the huge role played by the ocean and the various boats in this series, this seemed like a *major* story line in the making. How were Travis and Meyer going to get out of this? What was going to happen to the Busted Flush? I was hooked!



Too bad the matter was barely mentioned again until the ass end of the book when it all sorts itself out.



The main story line was classic TMcG: someone does someone wrong, the recipient of the short end of the stick is referred to Travis, he accepts the salvage job, and the story builds from there. A part of me was thrilled that the main story line involved a stamp collection. I'm a coin collector, so it was an interesting foray into a related-yet-unrelated hobby.



I learned so much about how a boat is put together in this installment. I really, really want to go sailing now.



Bonus: at the end, a favorite character from Deep Blue Good-By, the first TMcG novel, makes an unexpected appearance.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was scary good!
So, far this series is my fifth all time favorite of Travis McGee's mystery adventure. She was so cunning, and a sly as a fox to used men just to get her own end. Taking advantage a trusting old man Fedderman, and exploiting his collectibles/rare stamps that are worth four hundred thousand dollars.

Execute her friend Jane Lawson, and set up McGee and Sprenger to dispatch each other. Mary Alice McDermit, was the most hazardous syndicate killer, but Travis McGee knows a devious woman especially when he perceives one.

[Tabitha · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be honest, this book took me forever to read. In the end, I almost gave up on the Travis series, thinking it had nothing new to offer. If a reader gets to this book and feels tired of it by the third chapter, skip it. There is not much information gained by reading this book and the series will still continue, with much better reading and more exciting adventures.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this one ... I'm getting hooked on John D. MacDonald and Travis McGee, but this one seemed especially poignant to me. I loved the way Travis let himself get taken in by Mary Alice, written so brilliantly to capture him and sucker the one guy who is so hard to fool. I loved just how battered he was at the end of this one, how thoroughly he paid for letting himself get taken.

[wally · Rating 3 out of 5]

8 jun 15
#46 from macdonald for me, the 15th travis mcgee story. just finished One Fearful Yellow Eye, an excellent 5+ star story. i've noted in the last few stories that the "bad" guy isn't on the main stage much...but in the last...yes and no.

15 jun 15...i'm back. now i am reading this one, having completed A Tan and Sandy Silence

18 jun 15
finished. good story. i liked it. was not as impressed with this story's wind-up as i am impressed with some of the other macdonald stories. don't know why, but a time or two i was reminded of those old westerns i watched on television, the good guy in bed, busted up, ribs broke or something, those attending the hero distraught...or maybe gun-shot, the doc dropping a chunk of lead in a metal pan. the character of sprenger did not ring true, not at the end, and he kept not ringing true right up to the magical moment a gun and not lead floated through the air. the deuce coupe de diablo squealed rubber. the curtain closed after a fashion. not as impressed with a story when a character enters stage right to provide the audience with an explanation for why the gods are so fickle, but that's the way it goes. and so it goes. onward and upward

story begins
after seven years of bickering and fussing, the fort lauderdamndale city fathers, on a hot tuesday in september, killed off a life-style and turned me into a vagrant.

"permanent habitation aboard all watercraft within the city limits is prohibited."

verily. hallellujah. what the city fathers doth say, it shalt be so.
when i was in florida...this would be a few years after what travis experienced (hey, this really happened...nicely ambiguous?) the city fathers of another locale decreed that no more than one person shall inhabit a bedroom. no sleepover. one to a room, unrelated. need to fill the vacancies, dearest one.

crowd noises, munching, munching. cue the commercial.

time place scene setting
* fort lauderdale, florida, bahia mar, slip f-18, berth of the busted flush travis's barge-like houseboat
* one of the less offensive steak houses
* a laundromat! travis does his laundry!
* tuesday in september, and time passes, noted with phrases like "friday morning"..."early saturday morning"..."two weeks ago on the 7th, a thursday"...may 22nd...the 27th of september (the dust-up)...nine more shopping days till christmas...a cold day in january by story end
* out and about the water around fort lauderdale, miami
* 1st atlantic bank and trust company
* a small dark bar in an old hotel
* miss agnes, travis's 30s model rolls royce that another had cut down and converted to a pickup, painted bright blue
* fedderman stamp & coin company, corner of s.w. 11th street miami
* royal biscayne yacht club
* jane lawson's residence
* the winner's circle bar, where travis meets, talks with nucci
* the fountainbleau and its hotel lounge, one of many where travis goes trolling for information
* other places are merely mentioned...the contessa, another hotel lounge, other boats, the broomstick owned operated by geraldine, the 'bama girl owned operated by the alabama tiger and where the longest houseboat party in existence has been happening, the west bank, where jenny thurston paints
* the contessa hotel plays a larger role, room #1802, where travis stays
* there are often scenes from travis's past, in this one, a scene from war, a plane and men parachuting from same
* beach, seascape
* restaurant of the contessa
* no name island, a kidney-bean-shaped island
* biscayne bay, florida bay, scenes on the water
* the bay-front home of cathy kerr
* the munequita, little doll i think spanish, travis' smaller faster boat
* a rental boat
* a hospital
* harmony towers, where a.a. moojah resides...community room #7
* helen's book nook
* cerritos, a leather, luggage store
* sprenger investment associates
* candle key
* rocket beach
* vegas
* regal marine, where a boat is rented

major characters
* travis megee, our hero, six-foot-four-inch 1st-person eye-narrator, beach bum, salvage something or other, six feet four, had a brother who committed suicide...can't remember what mcgee story that nugget is to be found, but it is there.
* meyer, travis's friend and economist, lives aboard his boat, the john meynard keynes
* hirsh fedderman, 72-year-old, owns operates his stamp/coin shop, his wife died of cancer twenty years ago, his sons emigrated to israel where they married. he has seven grandchildren
* mary alice mcdermit, one of two employees of hirsh fedderman, and she keeps the investment records, she is a 27-year-old, and has been with hirsh for five years. she is separated from her husband who is a fruitcake, puts the harm on anyone who gets close to her
* jane lawson, a 40-year-old, has been with hirsh for fifteen years, she is a service widow and before her husband, jerry, died, they produced some children, a couple teenage daughters, judy the younger, linda the elder
* frank sprenger, client of hirsh fedderman, also with the outfit, a kind of bookkeeper/enforcer. miami is described as neutral territory and the local group has parameters they are not to cross. sprenger, sounds like, is with them. his cover is as an investment consultant and he has a few legitimate clients in that business, 2nd floor on lincoln road

minor characters, scene/setting-type characters, character with names, characters w/o a name
* judy lawson, jane's rebellious daughter
* alabama tiger, one of the residents of bahia mar where travis keeps his houseboat. the tiger has a boat called the 'bama girl
* happy girls
* two battalions of us, some of our people, our airplane driver, all related to a story from travis's past, war-time.
* 1600 people living on boats within the city limits of fort lauderdale
* embittered audience
* geraldine, who has the broomstick
* johnny dow...and in this story, this is the first we see more of johnny, more than a name mention. he has a small part, a small speech, scroom, a word he uses before he exits the stage, and he too, lives on the water among travis and meyer and the others
* one of the tiger's playgirls
* irv, someone meyer saw, to do with the city fathers' edict
* hines, west, brookman, weil (famous stamp collections, could be actual/real, too)
* w.b. perot (signature)...and this name is possibly real, as well
* clients of hirsh
* robert siegel auction
* dealers
* comeskey in utica, tippett over in sarasota (dealers)
* stanely gibbons...and this name is possibly real, too
* sam singer (was stamp doctor in this country, back around world war one)
* zareski, in paris (another stamp doctor/forger)
* a german who is the best yet (stamp doctor)
* two fellows who came with sprenger to visit hirsh
* ray & roger weil...two stamp guys
* some newspaper guy in new orleans
* this old guy up in jacksonville
* mr dobson, at first atlantic bank and trust
* elderly local businessmen
* friends at stanley gibbons
* the big boys (regards meyer's hedge index, something he generated that looked at how folk invest in stamp/coin, a signal to economic trends)
* willy nucci, owns a hotel (other stuff)...a guy in the know,operates below the radar of the outfit guys, travis meets with him to get information on sprenger
* kay, a waitress travis knows, she'd been elsewhere now working at the fountainbleau
* saturfay evening post journalist
* a huge old man
* brownie...who is dead...guy who knew things
* kay has twins in the second grade
* a barman
* a young lady with a newspaper/lauderdale/travis knows
* a guard...at one of the hotels
* a kinky girlfriend, of bunny golden, the man who did what sprenger does now
* urchins...who try to get meyer to buy insurance, $5 a tire, while he waits as travis prowls the hotel lounges looking for information
* veteranarian
* rosa & vito grimaldi, owners of the now defunct "grimaldi's" a restaurant, a favorite, gone now because someone wanted the land it sat on, inspections, this that the other...in hollandale
* a redcoat waiter (at the steakhouse)
* jenny thurston, paints, has the west bank, another boat near travis's busted flush
* sturdy young men, who come, then go, from jenny's place
* sam taggert, nora gardino, a girl named skeeter, puss killian...all denizens of bahia mar, fort lauderdale
* three people on duty there
* an old man with hair like brillo, the colonel, stamp customer
* a man came in and was greeted by name, mr sulzer
* some women at the laundromat where travis does his dirty overdue laundry
* a fat man on a rackety little trail bike (who almost ran travis down)
* jerry lawson, deceased husband of jane lawson
* jerry's folks
* major general samuel horace lawson, jerry's old man, a character. he has three sons, his wife is bess
* julio, a young cuban at the yacht club
* a batch of kids...younger daughter of jane, her group, other gangs of girls
* a boy mary alice had gone steady with for several years, tom, who was killed in a one-car accident
* lawyer...there are a number of lawyers mentioned
* a burly brown man with a shaved head (cop)
* families with little children 'standing and staring w/god only knows what dim thoughts moving around in their empty skulls.' heh! the general's description of the lookey-loos
* a fat young man with a guardsman mustache
* two technicians
* sergeant goodhead, cop
* arn, another cop
* captain mutty lamarr, a name travis provides goodhead, another cop in another place presumably
* gene miller on the herald
* jerry's wingman...jerry went down in a plane crash, pilot
* hirsh's lawyer, who has power of attorney
* moosejaw...miss a.a. moojah, maiden lady, previous employee of hirsh fedderman, she retired
* a probation officer is mentioned/judy daughter of jane
* would-be robbers, two of them, moosejaw clobbered them with a baseball bat, and this again, obviously, shows macdonald's misogynistic trend, the fabled sexism so many call him on. tell miss andry i called.
* catalog prices, scott, minkus, stanley gibbons, sanabria...and these names could likely be included in the list below
* two men stood at the dock, harry harris and dave davis, sent by sprenger and company to talk business with travis
* davey hoople, 19-year-old master marine mechanic
* mrs franck
* sissie, works for frank spranger, a kind of secretary
* a communications person (cop)
* the general's wife's sister
* alfred, the bell captain, at the contessa i think it was
* elderly couples, florida, meyer takes a survey, 40 couples total
* a little round cuban woman
* at sprenger investments: one floor man was on the phone, another talking to an elderly couple, a third reading the wall street journal, a girl who seemed to be 50% thighs, another girl was having a doughnut and coffee, the 3rd girl stared at me from the reception desk
* a tall frail old man, mr summer
* an associate...a courier to west berlin/sprenger
* helen, of helen's book nook
* mr benedict...who has a collection/stamps
* an old lady in vegas that travis saw/observed
* people at the main desk harmony towers
* fifteen old people were sitting in a circle
* a swarthy young lady...mr lewis (they are learning spanish i think is how it went)
* a woman hopped up
* a.a. moojah's young grand-nephew
* "miss dunn"...an identity for mary alice...a way of communicating intent to travis, "d" being one of several options
* captain matty lamarr...travis/meyer friend
* an unfriendly old man on a consolidated, a type of boat
* his wife, with a voice like a bearing about to go
* a friend gave mary alice a colt .25
* spanish dance troupe
* when she was 14, mary alice had a boyfriend who was 20, they stole things
* foster home...mary alice
* 20 girls in a cottage...at the school for girls, reform school
* leader was a wino, so two butch girls ran things
* one of the black girls
* a marine operator
* "george starch" a way of meyer communicating information to travis over marine radio
* zippy little lady with bangs who used to do polaroid commercials on televison
* ray mcdermitt, is who mary alice is married to, he is doing time, but has arranged with others so mary does not wander, ray is the middle brother
* boo waswell, past, story to do with travis' adventures
* an exiled master carpenter from cuba...who rigged some hiding places on the busted flush
* harry harris has a wife mention
* cathy kerr, friend of travis
* davie kerr, her son
* dr. ramirez, tends to travis
* christine, sister of cathy, married to max, 6 children in all
* daddy of cathy/christine
* the man on the television
* lois atkinson...prsumably from another story, friend of travis
* a good mechanic...at candle key

real people, famous, fictionally famous, the quality
* god
* zsa zsa
* allende (chile)
* john wayne
* viet cong...barbary pirates
* st francis
* horatio alger
* grissom (the astronaut)
* hammurabi
* robin hood
* president of eastman kodak
* jesus
* doris day
* nasa
* i.m. pei
* michael landon (actor, little joe on bonanza)
* snow white
* washington
* columbus
* saint louis
* ben franklin
* jesus
* doris day
* barbara barefoot ?
* cher, sonny, gabby gabriele
* armstrong...floors i think
* quixote
* admiral dewey
* chris columbus, isabella
* amerada hess ?
* queen victoria
* book of mormon, book of ether
* jack lemmon, jack lord, george peppard, archie bunker, erma bombeck
* burt reynolds

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one started out solidly for me, but like recent books in the series, it got bogged down. McGee takes on a new job for a rare stamp dealer with a troubling and mysterious problem. The guy deals with highly rare, investment grade stamps for his clients. Transactions occur in a safety deposit vault in the bank, and it all seems foolproof, until the guy notices that a folio of stamps has been substituted with lesser grade but identical stamps. Not detectable to the average person (including the client, but to the dealer, a loss of $400K. Did the client, a connected guy in the Miami underworld, rob from himself to double his investment? Or was it an inside job?

Interesting setup, but it's the middle part that sags a bit. I've noticed a change in McGee's philosophizing in recent books, going from his cynical rants on the demise of Florida and society in general to a more despondent, self-pitying outlook on things. That continues here and it doesn't add a whole lot to the story. The story does wrap up nicely though, with Meyer, who is one of the all-time great supporting characters, coming to the rescue.

The rare stamp thing made me think of Lawrence Block's excellent Hit Man series starring Keller, the professional hit man/stamp collector. Points for that, because I love those books. And MacDonald does his homework, providing some nice detail.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm pretty sure I read this in 1975 when staying on the island of Guam at Uncle Sam's behest but I don't remember it. So that's the same as reading it for the first time. What fun.
Travis Mcgee lives in Florida on a houseboat, "The Busted Flush", that he won in a poker game and does "salvage" work. And that "salvage" work is pretty, pretty, pretty, damn close to private investigation work. But he's no macho gun-toting fist flying hero...unless he has to be and then he is. I was surprised by and delighted by the anti-pollution and anti-corpocracy beliefs of Travis and didn't expect to stumble upon them here.
I guess I'll probably seek out the entire series and start to read them all in order now.
"On the way back a fat man on a rackety little trail bike nearly ran me down, then yelled out his estimate of my ancestry and lineage. I smiled and nodded and wished him well."
Its not Raymond Chandler but it is a fun fast read.

[Ms.pegasus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Among Travis's small circle of friends is Meyer, a brilliant economist who, like Travis, lives on the water. His modest floating domain is appropriately named “The John Maynard Keynes.” Meyer exudes a rabbinical wisdom, passionate outrage over injustice and, being Travis's friend, he is not afraid to pull up his shirt sleeves and get a bit dirty. That same loyalty provokes him to seek Travis's help on behalf of an old friend, Hirsh Fedderman, an elderly philatelist and dealer. Fedderman purchases stamps as investments for his clients. Each collection is kept in a bank lockbox which can only be accessed when the client and Fedderman are both present. To his horror, Fedderman has discovered that the collection of a client named Frank Sprenger has been replaced with a portfolio of inferior stock. Given the lockbox protocol, it is a complete mystery how the switch could have been accomplished. Fedderman only has two employees, one of whom would accompany him and the client to the bank to install each new purchase. However, the stamps and the album would never leave either Fedderman's or the client's sight. To make things worse, Sprenger is a dangerous man, a bookkeeper-enforcer-money launderer for the Miami mob franchises.

The appreciation of the collectibles market is a given, and the skeptical reader might find this problematic. However, apparently during the 1970's at about the time this book was written, stamp collecting was being touted as a fool-proof and lucrative investment, at least before the bubble burst. (Thank you wikipedia. What would I do without you?). It is to his credit that MacDonald makes the technicalities of philately readable.

MacDonald is also eloquent when observing the sad demise of his surroundings. It's one of the things I love about his writing. Of the barflies who have turned life into a habit Travis says: “They talked about the market and the elections. Maybe once upon a time it had been meaningful. They had probably met here when they had worked in the area, when the area had been important, when the hotel had been shining new. So now they came in from their retirement at this time of day, dressing for the part, to nurse a couple of eighty-five-cent drinks and find out who had died and who was dying. (p.21). He riffs on the décor of a pre-fab eatery: “We ate in one of the less offensive steak houses, at a table made from an imitation wooden hatch cover. They are sawing down forests, strapping thick green planks together with rusty iron, beating hell out of them with chains and crowbars, dipping them in a dark muddy stain, then covering the whole thing with indestructible transparent polymer about a quarter inch thick. Instant artifact.” Meyer expounds on a study he conducted of impoverished retirees: “They had all started to lay away some dollars for old-age income, but when the Social Security payments got bigger and the dollar started shrinking, they said the hell with it. Blow it all. Now their anger is directed outward, at society, because they don't dare look back and think of how pathetically vulnerable they were, how many thousands they blew on toys that broke before they were paid for, and how many thousands on the interest charges to buy those toys. They don't know who screwed them. They did what everybody else was doing.” MacDonald is writing epitaphs for a society that has lost it's way, and his pronouncementws resonate today with just as much power. Perhaps his most poignant outcry is over the islands ruined by oil companies, smelting, and strip mining. After that litany, the BP spill sounds merely like business as usual.

MacDonald has difficulty creating female characters. He seems to realize this. In THE DEEP BLUE GOOD-BY, Dr. Ramirez's diagnosis of Lois's physical and mental damage ease the reader into her subsequent emotional fragility and sexual dependency. Here, MacDonald lavishes great attention on Mary Alice, one of Fedderman's two assistants. Yet, seems at a loss to get beyond descriptions about her size, and athleticism. She is initially resistant to Travis's charms, and later gives him a backstory that explains her avoidance of relationships. Yet, she suddenly does an about-face. Jules Verne's giant squid couldn't grab at Travis more insistently. Travis, as well, throws caution to the winds. His attraction to Mary Alice is inexplicable, but then, this is Travis McGee so no explanation will be forthcoming. Suddenly, poor Fedderman's problems recede into the background, although MacDonald does inject life into the plot with the murder of Fedderman's other assistant, Jane Lawson. MacDonald is conning the reader. Travis has slipped from sharp objectivity to unreliable narrator, seeing what he wants to see. All that sexual hunger is, well, the ruse.

This book moved very slowly until the final plan is put into play. Finally, a thrilling scenario unfolds. The ending, as well, was both unexpected and satisfying.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, suspenseful mystery with the typical MacDonald humor and insight. Although, the Mary Alice character in the last half of the book did not resemble the character from the first half, a bit disconcerting.

[Neill Goltz · Rating 5 out of 5]

John D. MacDonald is long-dead, and his material about his signature character, private investigator Travis Magee, at first reaction must seem incredibly antique to contemporary readers born after 1970, who would only have been 16 when MacDonald died in 1986. No technology or phones to replace the grit of Philip Marlowe shoe-leather investigations.

But one doesn't read MacDonald for that. I have found that his signature device is a long internal essay (or two) in every book on a contemporary social, political or economic problem of considerable magnitude. This takes the form of a rumination by Magee, who is a care-worn intellectual (in addition to his deductive skills and considerable physical prowess).

A great example is from this book. He is having a conversation with his friend Meyer, a retired economist, who lives on the boat adjacent to Magee's, semi-permanently moored in a marina in Fort Lauderdale, from where in seedy South Florida most of Magee's detective jobs originate. (He is in the “salvage business,” I.e., “the recovery of lost or missing assets" with a fee of 50%.

Quote from Meyer:
"... so divide everything into two hundred million equal parts. Everything in this country that is fabricated. Steel mills, speedboats, cross-country power lines, scalpels, watch bands, fish rods, ski poles, plywood, storage batteries, everything. Break it down into basic raw materials and then compute the power requirements and the fossil fuels needed to make everybody's share in this country. Know what happens if you apply that formula to all of the peoples of all the other nations of the world?

You come up against a bleak fact, Travis. There is not enough material on and in the planet to ever give them what we're used to. The emerging nations are not going to emerge -- not into our pattern at least. Not ever. We've hogged it all. Technology won't come up with a way to crowd the Yangtze River with [speedboats].

It was okay, Travis, when the world couldn't see us consuming and consuming. Or hear us. Or taste some of our wares. But communication by cinema, satellite, radio, television tape, these have been like a bright light coming on slowly, being turned up like on a rheostat control in a dark cellar where all of mankind used to live. Now it is blinding bright, cruelly bright. And they can all look over into our corner and see us gorging ourselves and playing with our bright pretty toys. And so they want theirs now. Just like ours, God help them. And what is the only thing we can say? "Sorry. You're a little too late. We used it all up, all except what we need to keep our toys in repair and running and to replace them when they wear out. Sorry, but that's the way it is.

What comes after that? Barbarism, an interregnum, a new dark ages, and another start a thousand years from now with a few million people on the planet? Our myth has been that our standard of living would becoming available to all the peoples of the world. Myths wear thin. We have visceral appreciation of the truth. That truth, which we don't dare announce to the world, is what gives us the guilt and the shame and the despair. Nobody in the world will ever live as well, materially, as we once did. And now, as our materialism begins to sicken us, it is precisely what the emerging nations want for themselves. And can never have. Brazil might manage it. But no one else."

So MacDonald can be pretty bleak, if not prescient. Here are some sources if you want to search.

http://256.com/gray/quotes/john_macdo...

http://256.com/gray/quotes/john_macdo...

These types of ruminations are why I so enjoy MacDonald, and make him continuously relevant.

In a way, the Magee stories - perhaps better, "tales" - are beside the point. They are enjoyable, fully characterized and, if you like "action", full of it. They have a hint of the sexism of the early '60s, but it is entirely forgiveable considering the context and times. (Possible insight: is it the type of writing typical of the now long-gone "Argosy" Magazine of the '60s? I.e., pre-Playboy?)

I have probably horrified some long-time MacDonald/Magee devotees with this. But I am a Magee nibbler and not a binger. I like to dip in from time to time to see what I find. I think I've read only about 5 of the "color" series altogether - the first I suspect in about 1972 - and then another every 10 years or so. I've never been disappointed.

"The Scarlet Ruse" is my first since becoming active on GoodReads, and I use it to reflect back on my MacDonald/Magee experiences generally, and not specifically.

MacDonald/Magee may be a difficult acquired taste for most at this stage of literature and history, but I recommend the effort. There are wonderful nuggets to experience.

[Wanda Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

My old friend.....

My old friend, JDM, strikes again! I knew him in the Keys another life ago.....
Fond memories of past times.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Scarlet Ruse” is the fourteenth novel in the 21-book Travis McGee series and was first published in 1972, following 1971’s “A Tan and Sandy Silence.” It is a terrific mystery story and, in some ways, far more detailed than other McGee novels. McGee, if you are not familiar with his world, lives on a 52-foot houseboat, “The Busted Flush,” which he had won in a poker game. He basically loafs around on the water, indulging in wine, women, fishing, and card games in the waters off Fort Lauderdale. Every once in a while, he takes on a “salvage” case. By that, “salvage” doesn’t mean deep-sea diving for buried treasure. Rather, it means that, when someone has lost something of value and the law either doesn’t offer a solution for its return or it would be awkward and inconvenient to go through the proper channels, McGee will act as a “white knight on a horse” and obtain the pilfered items, although assessing a fifty percent share as his finder’s fee. It is somewhat of an unusual concept for a detective novel, although in some ways it is similar to the arrangement that Lawrence Block’s embittered detective, Matthew Scudder, makes as far as doing folks favors.

What’s unusual about this novel is the locked-room mystery aspect of it. A stamp dealer has a handful of wealthy clients for whom he puts together stamp albums of high value. The albums are kept in safe deposit boxes and, when the dealer gets something at auction, he goes with his clients and an assistant to the bank where they spend time examining the item in detail before mounting it in the album. The dealer has an absolutely keen eye for the stamps, the imperfections, and the values to be found in them. It was apparently a terrific way to carry items of value across international borders and a hedge against the inflationary values of the seventies. Unfortunately for the dealer, in examining one of the albums (one belonging to the local mobster), he realizes that it is filled with not the valuable items he got at auctions, but marred and dirty items of the same type, but not the same values. No one else could possibly have had keen enough an eye to notice. The dealer panics. The album belonging to this mobster is valued at nearly half a million dollars. What happened? How did the stamps get exchanged in this locked box that required both signatures to get?

McGee is asked to intervene, a somewhat unusual puzzle for him, trying to figure out what happened, where the exchange occurred. Is the dealer pulling a long con? Is the mobster playing a joke on the dealer where he will then demand the dealer make good on what was supposed to be in there? Working with the dealer and the two assistants, McGee attempts to sort it all out and make sense of it.
Few besides John MacDonald could ever have written a compelling mystery story about stamp collecting, perhaps the least exciting hobby one could imagine. But, he does it here. The book is filled with detailed information about stamps and collecting and was obviously well- researched. There is a romance here with an incredible gal, Mary Alice. There is also a showdown that even readers of the McGee series will find hard to believe.All in all, it is one top-notch book and a worthy addition to the series.

[MisterLiberry Head · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poor T. McGee! After a six-month installment of his periodic retirement, he’s inexplicably in the doldrums, feeling joyless and anxious--and he’s getting low on funds. Also, a new city ordinance is threatening to break up the eccentric community of permanent boat dwellers in the Bahia Mar marina he calls home. However, helpful Meyer brings him a new salvage job, helping professional philatelist Hirsh Fedderman recover a valuable stamp collection that, almost impossibly, has been replaced by near-worthless junk while locked in a bank vault. More interestingly, the stamps--worth five “big round ones” at auction--are the property of the Miami overseer of a gangster empire. Even better, one of old Fedderman’s shop girls is a black-haired beauty built to the McGee scale: very tall, big-boned and conditioned like an Olympic athlete--all in all, "a pretty vivid hunk of lady" (p87)--and memorably depicted on the original 1973 paperback cover! Our hero doesn’t know a thing about philately, but he’ll take the job to get closer to Mary Alice McDermit.

By the time a somewhat off-his-game McGee finally sniffs out the missing loot in THE SCARLET RUSE, he and the houseboat “Busted Flush” are being stalked through the no-name Florida keys by a practiced killer with a sniper rifle, a grudge and “little nightmare blueberry eyes”(p292). As Meyer earlier warned our boat-bum Quixote, “some kinds of windmills can break your ass”(p204). Like always, Travis McGee is at his best and his most dangerous when everything goes wrong. Even if an adventure nearly kills him, he has old friends (this time, dating back to the first book in the series) to help put him back together. Despite everything, McGee can’t help feeling that “small tingle of anticipation” at the prospect of the next salvage job. Me, too.

[Adrienne · Rating 1 out of 5]

First, the narrator has a voice like my great-uncle, whom I cannot stand to listen to speak. For 3 hours the voice grated on me. Listeners should not have to listen to the reader breathe! Yuck! I will be sure to avoid listening to future audio readings by Darren Gavin.

Second, the story was awful. Everything was absolutely predictable. The characters were completely 1 dimensional. The writing was terrible. It reminded me of a set of free books I received by Ray Hansen.

[Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this was the 20th book I've in the Travis McGee series, but it's the first one I didn't like that much. There were the usual profound nuggets of McGee wisdom and philosophy ("Today, my friends, we each have one day less, every one of us. And joy is the only thing that slows the clock.") But MacDonald belabors the intricacies of the plot and declaws the tension when McGee starts asking far too many "What if...?" questions.

[Nancy Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

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" to meet Travis, and get ready for some great reading!