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Dead Low Tide
Dead Low Tide is an iconic early thriller from John D. MacDonald, the mastermind behind Cape Fear and the Travis McGee novels. On the coast of Florida, a working stiff is wrongfully accused of murdering his boss—and must outwit one of MacDonald’s signature villains to save his life.
Introduction by Dean Koontz
A college graduate and amateur fisherman, Andy McClintock is stuck toiling in the office of a construction company. But when Andy tries to quit, his boss offers him a promotion and a raise—and then promptly kills himself with a harpoon gun. At least, that’s what it looks like, until the police rule it homicide—with the murder weapon belonging to Andy.
The harpoon gun had been stolen out of Andy’s garage, and the boss’s wife makes the outrageous claim that she and Andy were having an affair. He’s been set up. To clear his name, he’ll have to find the real killer. But Andy soon discovers that he’s up against more than a two-bit thief—he’s been targeted by absolute evil, a monster with no compassion for his fellow man.
Introduction by Dean Koontz
A college graduate and amateur fisherman, Andy McClintock is stuck toiling in the office of a construction company. But when Andy tries to quit, his boss offers him a promotion and a raise—and then promptly kills himself with a harpoon gun. At least, that’s what it looks like, until the police rule it homicide—with the murder weapon belonging to Andy.
The harpoon gun had been stolen out of Andy’s garage, and the boss’s wife makes the outrageous claim that she and Andy were having an affair. He’s been set up. To clear his name, he’ll have to find the real killer. But Andy soon discovers that he’s up against more than a two-bit thief—he’s been targeted by absolute evil, a monster with no compassion for his fellow man.
242 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1953
212 people are currently reading
567 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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April 15, 2020Published in 1953, “Dead Low Tide” is an early example of MacDonald's take on real estate developers whose draglines and dredges inexorably alter Florida coasts. MacDonald also explores the nature of the sociopath here. The antagonist of “Dead Low Tide” is a very spooky stone-cold killer of a type echoed in several of the McGee novels, especially “A Tan and Sandy Silence”. Most of all, Andy McClintock is quite the romantic errant knight beneath an indifferent surface. Much as he and McGee might pretend. otherwise, McClintock cherishes women and justice.
This is one of John D MacDonald's earliest books (1953) and I think one of his better ones. It is fairly short (160 pages) but MacDonald was not one to pad his books out unnecessarily. The storyline deals with a man who is falsely accused of murder and the ramifications of the murder and the reasons behind the killing a good quick read, it is certainly recommended.
John D. MacDonald was an American novelist and short-story writer. His works include the “Travis McGee” series and the novel “The Executioners”, which was adapted into the film’ Cape Fear’. In 1962 MacDonald was named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America; in 1980, he won a National Book Award. In print he delighted in smashing the bad guys, deflating the pompous, and exposing the venal. In life, he was a truly empathetic man; his friends, family, and colleagues found him to be loyal, generous, and practical. In business, he was fastidiously ethical. About being a writer, he once expressed with gleeful astonishment, “They pay me to do this! They don’t realize, I would pay them.” He spent the later part of his life in Florida with his wife and son. He died in 1986.
This is one of John D MacDonald's earliest books (1953) and I think one of his better ones. It is fairly short (160 pages) but MacDonald was not one to pad his books out unnecessarily. The storyline deals with a man who is falsely accused of murder and the ramifications of the murder and the reasons behind the killing a good quick read, it is certainly recommended.
John D. MacDonald was an American novelist and short-story writer. His works include the “Travis McGee” series and the novel “The Executioners”, which was adapted into the film’ Cape Fear’. In 1962 MacDonald was named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America; in 1980, he won a National Book Award. In print he delighted in smashing the bad guys, deflating the pompous, and exposing the venal. In life, he was a truly empathetic man; his friends, family, and colleagues found him to be loyal, generous, and practical. In business, he was fastidiously ethical. About being a writer, he once expressed with gleeful astonishment, “They pay me to do this! They don’t realize, I would pay them.” He spent the later part of his life in Florida with his wife and son. He died in 1986.
May 26, 2022
This is an early stand alone novel from John D. MacDonald, published in 1953, eleven years before he would introduce the immortal Travis McGee in The Deep Blue Goodbye. The protagonist is Andy McClintock, one of the everyman type of characters that MacDonald so often put into peril in books like these. McClintock is a college graduate who is wasting his talents working for peanuts in the office of a Florida Gulf Coast construction company owned by a guy named John Long.
One afternoon, Andy decides to throw in the towel and quit, hoping to move on to something more rewarding. But Long surprises him by offering him a promotion. Long leads McClintock to intuit that he (Long) might be dying or some such thing, and he wants his latest construction project to be completed under any circumstances, perhaps as his lasting legacy. Long offers McClintock a contract, giving him a raise and the power to complete the project should anything happen to Long.
Well, of course, something does. In fairly short order, Long turns up dead. He's apparently killed himself using a particularly vicious weapon conveniently stolen from McClintock's garage. The bumbling chief of police initially judges the death a suicide, but soon thereafter, he changes his mind and decides it was a murder. And his A-number-one suspect is Andy McClintock.
This is a first-person narrative from McClintock's point of view and the reader knows that Andy is innocent. But while he rots in a cell, everyone in the small town quickly concludes that he is guilty and the only way he will be saved is if he can somehow save himself.
This is a fun read, with lots of twists and turns. There are a handful of women, some chaste and others not so much, along with a lot of action. MacDonald takes the time to skewer, as he often does, the corrupt developers and others who are ruining the Florida coast in pursuit of cheap and easy profits. The characters are fully developed and the landscape is beautifully rendered. This may not be the best of MacDonald's novels but the fact that it is one of his guarantees that it's going to be pretty damned good.
One afternoon, Andy decides to throw in the towel and quit, hoping to move on to something more rewarding. But Long surprises him by offering him a promotion. Long leads McClintock to intuit that he (Long) might be dying or some such thing, and he wants his latest construction project to be completed under any circumstances, perhaps as his lasting legacy. Long offers McClintock a contract, giving him a raise and the power to complete the project should anything happen to Long.
Well, of course, something does. In fairly short order, Long turns up dead. He's apparently killed himself using a particularly vicious weapon conveniently stolen from McClintock's garage. The bumbling chief of police initially judges the death a suicide, but soon thereafter, he changes his mind and decides it was a murder. And his A-number-one suspect is Andy McClintock.
This is a first-person narrative from McClintock's point of view and the reader knows that Andy is innocent. But while he rots in a cell, everyone in the small town quickly concludes that he is guilty and the only way he will be saved is if he can somehow save himself.
This is a fun read, with lots of twists and turns. There are a handful of women, some chaste and others not so much, along with a lot of action. MacDonald takes the time to skewer, as he often does, the corrupt developers and others who are ruining the Florida coast in pursuit of cheap and easy profits. The characters are fully developed and the landscape is beautifully rendered. This may not be the best of MacDonald's novels but the fact that it is one of his guarantees that it's going to be pretty damned good.
June 17, 2021
John D. McDonald is best known for his incredible Travis McGee series, which he published starting in 1964, but he wrote dozens of novels before the Busted Flush and was one of the original Gold Medal paperback original writers.
Dead Low Tide is one of his earlier works, first published in 1953, and re-released a few times. It stands out from the usual cauldron of pulp crime novels. McDonald has a starry-eyed innocent framed for murder with his own weapon having been used and his alibi mashed up and thrown away. But it is not the average loser that McDonald portrays with no past and no future and no one to lean on. Rather, the beauty of what McDonald does here is that Andy McClintock is everyman. He’s a guy who is working in a construction firm, hoping for a big break, hoping that it is a small enough firm that he won’t get lost trying to climb the company ladder. McClintock is no one special, but he is everybody, trying to make living, living his life.
MCDonald also doesn’t open the novel with the main character passed out with no memory of the night before and blood dripping from his hands. The building blocks of this plot are a little more subtle and McDonald takes about a quarter of the novel setting the stage before anything extraordinary happens. By then, the reader doesn’t know who the murderer is, but sure knows that McClintock isn’t the guy and when the sheriff wraps him up in handcuffs and throws away the key, we all feel that he was wronged. Indeed, the story all plays out from McClintock’s point of view and he is just as surprised as any of us, although perhaps a few of us were shouting at him to stay away from the boss’s wife and to come clean with the sheriff from the start cause you know all that’s going to play against him.
What makes the novel sing so well is McDonald’s writing which is clearly the beginnings of what we later see in the Travis McGee series. He describes people so well you feel as the reader that you get a sense of them just as we all get a strong sense of people the moment we meet them. Christy has eyes the shade of vinegar and is a midwestern blonde, a big girl who is smooth and tight and fitted into her skin. He later tells us that she couldn’t carry a tune in a bait bucket, but it was good to know she had lost the blues. Of Joy, the new office girl, she strikes McClintock as being a little phoney, as someone who had been told how to walk, and she had perhaps improved on the original advice.
Here and there, McDonald goes on a very brief reverie about life and what was happening to Florida, observations that later became much longer in the Travis McGee series, but you can see the roots of such philosophical meanderings here.
McDonald just does a great job of putting the reader in McClintock’s shoes and feeling that the world could fall apart for anyone so rapidly if someone got in their head to frame you. Overall, it was a great fun time reading this.
Dead Low Tide is one of his earlier works, first published in 1953, and re-released a few times. It stands out from the usual cauldron of pulp crime novels. McDonald has a starry-eyed innocent framed for murder with his own weapon having been used and his alibi mashed up and thrown away. But it is not the average loser that McDonald portrays with no past and no future and no one to lean on. Rather, the beauty of what McDonald does here is that Andy McClintock is everyman. He’s a guy who is working in a construction firm, hoping for a big break, hoping that it is a small enough firm that he won’t get lost trying to climb the company ladder. McClintock is no one special, but he is everybody, trying to make living, living his life.
MCDonald also doesn’t open the novel with the main character passed out with no memory of the night before and blood dripping from his hands. The building blocks of this plot are a little more subtle and McDonald takes about a quarter of the novel setting the stage before anything extraordinary happens. By then, the reader doesn’t know who the murderer is, but sure knows that McClintock isn’t the guy and when the sheriff wraps him up in handcuffs and throws away the key, we all feel that he was wronged. Indeed, the story all plays out from McClintock’s point of view and he is just as surprised as any of us, although perhaps a few of us were shouting at him to stay away from the boss’s wife and to come clean with the sheriff from the start cause you know all that’s going to play against him.
What makes the novel sing so well is McDonald’s writing which is clearly the beginnings of what we later see in the Travis McGee series. He describes people so well you feel as the reader that you get a sense of them just as we all get a strong sense of people the moment we meet them. Christy has eyes the shade of vinegar and is a midwestern blonde, a big girl who is smooth and tight and fitted into her skin. He later tells us that she couldn’t carry a tune in a bait bucket, but it was good to know she had lost the blues. Of Joy, the new office girl, she strikes McClintock as being a little phoney, as someone who had been told how to walk, and she had perhaps improved on the original advice.
Here and there, McDonald goes on a very brief reverie about life and what was happening to Florida, observations that later became much longer in the Travis McGee series, but you can see the roots of such philosophical meanderings here.
McDonald just does a great job of putting the reader in McClintock’s shoes and feeling that the world could fall apart for anyone so rapidly if someone got in their head to frame you. Overall, it was a great fun time reading this.
June 16, 2016
An early gem from JDM, one of my late father's favorite writers. To avoid spoilers, I'll just say that this short novel is expertly plotted and paced, with plenty of surprises. As an aside, as much as I love the Travis McGee books, his non-series books seem to have aged better.
December 31, 2019
One of my favorite John D. MacDonald novels. It was tight, interesting, and the narrative moved.
June 18, 2023
This has always been one of my favorite MacDonald novels. I read late in the night not wanting to put it down just as I had back in those reading under the covers with a flashlight days. Unlike Soft Touch, this one is not a classic noir. We have the everyman protagonist who is seemingly set up by the femme fatale, but this is more a mystery that needs to be solved rather than a descent into noir fatalism - at least from the protagonist's perspective. Most of the other characters, however, do not fare so well. Bit of a love story in this one, too, but it seems organic rather than gratuitous, and that elevates this one from the otherwise despairing depths.
Update 5/20/2023: Listened to the audiobook. Excellent.
Update 5/20/2023: Listened to the audiobook. Excellent.
May 29, 2010
Terrific earlier novel from MacDonald. Pretty much all of MacDonald's pre-Travis McGee paperback originals from the 50's are worth a read, but if I had to recommend one to friends it would be this one. Also a good study piece for new writers learning the craft of story-telling.
August 16, 2016
A few weeks have passed since I've read (vacations and such), so I've been neglectful of my GR reviewing duties. Written in 1953, DLT is one MacDonald's stand alone (not Travis McGee) efforts. As usual, MacDonald takes everyday standard stuff (the construction business, real estate), and turns it into a soup of jealousy, booze, sex, and mayhem. In this case Andy McClintock, a hard working college boy, sick of the New York scene, and seeking to make a new start with a hard driving developer John Long, who lately seems to have something weighing on this mind. That something is John's wife, Mary Eleanor Long, a piece of sweet talking Alabama trash who scoots in to the company parking lot one night, with her ready to go MG. Andy's working late, and it's hot and sweaty in the office. The two go for a drive, and have a drink. Mary Eleanor is so worried about John. Could Andy find out what's wrong. Right.
Things for Andy go downhill from there. Like earlier JM readings, these novels, 50 plus years old now, are still fresh. I'm fascinated with MacDonald's chronicle (lament?) for a fast changing Florida, but also a fast changing nation. Those changes, especially among the younger and hipper bunch, MacDonald views with a jaundiced eye, and the Evil in this effort is dark indeed. It's not some sort of conservative - liberal thing with MacDonald. There's more to it. He senses something dark in the American heart that's coming more and more to the surface. Anyway, it's a tight little novel, though I thought was starting to drift into a bit too comfortable of an ending. And then the hook! What a pro MacDonald was!
Things for Andy go downhill from there. Like earlier JM readings, these novels, 50 plus years old now, are still fresh. I'm fascinated with MacDonald's chronicle (lament?) for a fast changing Florida, but also a fast changing nation. Those changes, especially among the younger and hipper bunch, MacDonald views with a jaundiced eye, and the Evil in this effort is dark indeed. It's not some sort of conservative - liberal thing with MacDonald. There's more to it. He senses something dark in the American heart that's coming more and more to the surface. Anyway, it's a tight little novel, though I thought was starting to drift into a bit too comfortable of an ending. And then the hook! What a pro MacDonald was!
June 3, 2017
Dead low tide
It is delightful to read and reread a book by an author who has command of the English language. His characters are well crafted and his story line is solid and his sense of place is right on.
It is delightful to read and reread a book by an author who has command of the English language. His characters are well crafted and his story line is solid and his sense of place is right on.
September 16, 2017
DLT is a earlier classic John D novel , one that has aged very nicely , like a fine wine.
It is very clear that this book and author were largely influential to numerous writers.
MacDonald was one of the pioneers of this genre and one of my personal favorites.
It is very clear that this book and author were largely influential to numerous writers.
MacDonald was one of the pioneers of this genre and one of my personal favorites.
August 8, 2024
This story could have been just another mystery if it were penned by someone else. Yet, his unique prose and richly developed characters captivate you from start to finish. The real magic lies in his use of adjectives, which, at just the right moments, intensify the emotions and transform the reading experience into something more.
November 16, 2025
This 1953 Florida-set mystery-thriller felt a little humdrum at the start, but boy does it get delightfully odd. Narrator Andy McClintock’s boss, a contractor named John Long, is murdered with his stolen harpoon gun, and his widow claims Andy, a 28-year-old construction estimator, and she were having an affair, making him a prime suspect. But then Long’s wife is murdered, and then another woman is drowned. Clearly, a homicidal killer is terrorizing the community. The final three chapters are a blast and feature a shocking twist and a thrilling denouement. MacDonald’s characterization is top notch, the first-person narration by Andy is engaging, there’s a romance subplot that feels organic, the Southwest Florida setting is vividly rendered, the villain Roy Kenny is a memorable psycho (right up there with Max Cady from The Executioners, a.k.a. Cape Fear), and there’s great information about tides, real estate, fishing, and infrared photography.
June 1, 2017
There was a lot about this novel that I loved. MacDonald knows how to create characters that you care about. I also liked the way he sets the novel in a place, in this case, the west coast of Florida in the 195os. I remember first reading MacDonald years ago in his Travis McGee novels also set in Florida. So w see a Florida that is rapidly disappearing in a time thetas similar to now but different in so many ways. If you have read MacDonald before this is a good one to revisit. If you have never read him you are in for a treat.
November 20, 2018
This was another thrilling and compelling read from the reliable John D.
As usual, John D. gives us defined and colorful characters in a Florida setting that he would come to use so often later on in his Travis McGee series.
This book was particularly full of unexpected turns and twists. While I paid close attention, I did not predict such twists, let alone solve the mystery -- John D. kept me guessing until the very end.
This book also hints at a love story element which I found quite touching and one of my favorites of any that I've read in John D.'s books. John D. is not a romance novelist (far from it!), but the romance element in this book was perhaps the most touching of any that I've read in his books thus far.
As usual, John D. gives us defined and colorful characters in a Florida setting that he would come to use so often later on in his Travis McGee series.
This book was particularly full of unexpected turns and twists. While I paid close attention, I did not predict such twists, let alone solve the mystery -- John D. kept me guessing until the very end.
This book also hints at a love story element which I found quite touching and one of my favorites of any that I've read in John D.'s books. John D. is not a romance novelist (far from it!), but the romance element in this book was perhaps the most touching of any that I've read in his books thus far.
June 13, 2021
Sensationalist title. Sexy cover art. What's not to love about this gripping thriller! I really have to find more John D. MacDonald. Yes - this is a cheesy 1950's dimestore potboiler, but damn it's well done.
April 30, 2025
Good…,but…
Too much water for my taste — and a strangely unconvincing conclusion or ending — a fishing-rod?
Too much water for my taste — and a strangely unconvincing conclusion or ending — a fishing-rod?
August 28, 2022
What fun to read a book written 70 years ago. The details bring back my summertime childhood when Southern nights were sticky hot and you had to sleep with the windows open, even when a psychotic killer was on the loose.
John D. McDonald is the only author my father and I ever shared. Now that I live in Florida I can fully appreciate McDonald’s descriptions of my last adopted state.
I WILL be reading more J.D. McDonald’s books again.
John D. McDonald is the only author my father and I ever shared. Now that I live in Florida I can fully appreciate McDonald’s descriptions of my last adopted state.
I WILL be reading more J.D. McDonald’s books again.
June 12, 2017
Amazing Story by the Master
I don't know when this story was written in the sequence of his work but there are all the hallmarks of John D. Macdonald's best work. Fascinating characters, complex plot and his haunting description of an older Florida before the bulldozers and developers arrived. Highly recommended.
I don't know when this story was written in the sequence of his work but there are all the hallmarks of John D. Macdonald's best work. Fascinating characters, complex plot and his haunting description of an older Florida before the bulldozers and developers arrived. Highly recommended.
June 8, 2017
Love these classics
Simple but complex, so beautiful in its imagery. I needed this novel right now, since I'm living in Florida. He understood and conveyed so much without coming out and saying it directly - a great talent!
Simple but complex, so beautiful in its imagery. I needed this novel right now, since I'm living in Florida. He understood and conveyed so much without coming out and saying it directly - a great talent!
October 30, 2016
One of his best.
September 2, 2022
I hate that I didn't really enjoy this book. I had read a lot of good things about John D. MacDonald. I know that, at his peak, he was a heavyweight in the crime fiction genre. I just never could get into this story.
The first part wondered around a little bit and was deliberately vague. As the story went on, it became clear what all the pseudo confusion was about, but for the first third or so, there were several instances that made me feel like I'd missed something.
As the story went on, it became more obvious just how much a product of its time this book was. The MC is jailed, at one point, but then released and allowed to participate in the murder investigation that is the central plot of the book. He interferes multiple times and, despite the fact that the police chief doesn't seem to like him at all, he is just allowed to tag along and put his nose in where it doesn't belong. Any actual police investigation would have slammed him back in jail for interfering and for withholding evidence.
I know that this book was published in the 50s and that I should make an effort to view it through that lens, but there was a great deal of casual misogyny in this book. The female characters are either loose women who are, obviously villainous and can't be trusted, or they're sort of happy bimbos who are just along so that they male characters can have emotional reactions. I mean... at one point one of the female characters gets so distraught after receiving some bad news that she goes into a full-blown catatonic state (as women are naturally wont to do, fragile creatures that they are.) So how do we attempt to get her out of her catatonia? Duh. We smack her. What do we do if that doesn't work? The next logical thing, of course: we yank her tits out to try and "shock" her back into herself.
Like I said earlier, I really wanted to like this book. Or, rather, I really wanted to like John D. MacDonald. I've read quotes from a handful of writers that I admire who all sing his praises because he was either so talented or so prolific or both that he defined the crime genre of his day. The thing is, I recently read a Donald Westlake and he was working at (more or less) the same time as MacDonald. That book was wildly entertaining and much more enjoyable – both in plot and in style – than Dead Low Tide.
I intend to give MacDonald another shot, at some point. His book The Executioners (later republished as Cape Fear) is lauded by many as one of the best crime mysteries that has been written. I intend to read it but I'm not sure I want to so soon after finishing this one. I'll go into it with a negative opinion from the word go.
The first part wondered around a little bit and was deliberately vague. As the story went on, it became clear what all the pseudo confusion was about, but for the first third or so, there were several instances that made me feel like I'd missed something.
As the story went on, it became more obvious just how much a product of its time this book was. The MC is jailed, at one point, but then released and allowed to participate in the murder investigation that is the central plot of the book. He interferes multiple times and, despite the fact that the police chief doesn't seem to like him at all, he is just allowed to tag along and put his nose in where it doesn't belong. Any actual police investigation would have slammed him back in jail for interfering and for withholding evidence.
I know that this book was published in the 50s and that I should make an effort to view it through that lens, but there was a great deal of casual misogyny in this book. The female characters are either loose women who are, obviously villainous and can't be trusted, or they're sort of happy bimbos who are just along so that they male characters can have emotional reactions. I mean... at one point one of the female characters gets so distraught after receiving some bad news that she goes into a full-blown catatonic state (as women are naturally wont to do, fragile creatures that they are.) So how do we attempt to get her out of her catatonia? Duh. We smack her. What do we do if that doesn't work? The next logical thing, of course: we yank her tits out to try and "shock" her back into herself.
Like I said earlier, I really wanted to like this book. Or, rather, I really wanted to like John D. MacDonald. I've read quotes from a handful of writers that I admire who all sing his praises because he was either so talented or so prolific or both that he defined the crime genre of his day. The thing is, I recently read a Donald Westlake and he was working at (more or less) the same time as MacDonald. That book was wildly entertaining and much more enjoyable – both in plot and in style – than Dead Low Tide.
I intend to give MacDonald another shot, at some point. His book The Executioners (later republished as Cape Fear) is lauded by many as one of the best crime mysteries that has been written. I intend to read it but I'm not sure I want to so soon after finishing this one. I'll go into it with a negative opinion from the word go.
February 10, 2025
A pretty good showing of what MacDonald could do when he was on his A-game. The good, strong characters, vivid description, a legitimately interesting mystery, strong suspense almost all the way through. MacDonald's wordcraft has always been a high point for him, and he break out all the stops here. His writing isn't always poetic, though it often is, but it is always immersive. He describes the heat and humidity of Florida in visceral detail, it's like you're actually there. Andy McClintock is a capable everyman hero, and the villain of the piece is one of MacDonald's strongest. The bad guy here represents an early attempt at MacDonald's favorite villain archetype, the perfect sociopath, pure evil. That's a difficult archetype to write well, they often come off as boring, but MacDonald executes it almost perfectly here.
The bad, MacDonald never could write women, and he as inept here as he is in everything else he wrote. His dialogue is also consistently bad, particularly when McClintock is talking to his girlfriend, and then again when we finally meet the villain of the piece. The suspense crashes out at the ending, the last thirty or so pages were a slog for me, and MacDonald could have used some more copy editing, in particular, he uses paragraph breaks far too little. The ugly, this book is actually pretty light on MacDonald's legendarily cringe-inducing sociological asides, but he's got a few in here. On the whole, if I had to introduce someone to MacDonald, I think I would use this book. It's a good highlight of his strengths, without being quite as horribly dated as his other works.
The bad, MacDonald never could write women, and he as inept here as he is in everything else he wrote. His dialogue is also consistently bad, particularly when McClintock is talking to his girlfriend, and then again when we finally meet the villain of the piece. The suspense crashes out at the ending, the last thirty or so pages were a slog for me, and MacDonald could have used some more copy editing, in particular, he uses paragraph breaks far too little. The ugly, this book is actually pretty light on MacDonald's legendarily cringe-inducing sociological asides, but he's got a few in here. On the whole, if I had to introduce someone to MacDonald, I think I would use this book. It's a good highlight of his strengths, without being quite as horribly dated as his other works.
June 21, 2025
Recently finished Jack Davis' 'The Gulf' - Pulitzer prize winner, etc - where he devotes some time to early environmentalists/Audobon enthusiasts, etc - one of which was the popular writer John D. MacDonald. MacDonald was part of that 50's phenomenon of the drug store paperback rack with the lurid covers that I grew up with on my way to the comic book rack. In 1974 I was assigned to NAS Saufley Field outside Pensacola. I'd been on the Gulf Coast since January 1973 and MacDonald's novels were regularly reviewed/prominent. So, I read a couple. Good. Then I started a graduate degree at the University of West Florida and there wasn't much time for leisure reading.
Intrigued by Davis' portrayal of MacDonald, I did some research, selected this one to start (TBR 'The Deep Blue Goodbye' McGee #1, 'A Flash of Green,' 'Barrier Island,' 'Condominium,' and maybe 'The Executioner.'
'Dead Low Tide' is pretty good. Page turner. There are some issues with the lead character. There are some stereotypes. And . . . Still, the description of early 50's Florida is pretty good. Working the tides, geography, real estate development, small town and fishing portions - I could almost hear the screen doors slamming and smell the salt water. Reminiscent of Chandler's southern California late 40's and Earle Stanley Garner's San Francisco late 20's and early 30's.
Intrigued by Davis' portrayal of MacDonald, I did some research, selected this one to start (TBR 'The Deep Blue Goodbye' McGee #1, 'A Flash of Green,' 'Barrier Island,' 'Condominium,' and maybe 'The Executioner.'
'Dead Low Tide' is pretty good. Page turner. There are some issues with the lead character. There are some stereotypes. And . . . Still, the description of early 50's Florida is pretty good. Working the tides, geography, real estate development, small town and fishing portions - I could almost hear the screen doors slamming and smell the salt water. Reminiscent of Chandler's southern California late 40's and Earle Stanley Garner's San Francisco late 20's and early 30's.
November 4, 2019
This is one of author John D MacDonald's early novels. The protagonist, Andy McCIintock, is working for a Florida-based construction company in a job which is okay, but not too inspiring. His boss, John Long, is good at sweet talking potential new clients, but is struggling to finish up a big construction project. Then one day, Long's wife approaches Andy and asks him to dig into why her husband is acting a bit strange. Andy is wary, but eventually has a chat with John Long, who has some curious things to say. This launches a twisting tale that will change the lives of all involved.
Like in his later Travis McGee stories, MacDonald has a wonderful sense of place and uses the Florida landscape, particularly the waters, to tie together various ends of this story. The title, Dead Low Tide, refers to a point where water recedes just enough so one can consider swimming before the deeper waters return. Mention is made of this tide early on and it plays a role in that denouement that threatens all that Andy cares about. This is a fine book, with sharp characterizations and a fine introduction to MacDonald's novels.
Like in his later Travis McGee stories, MacDonald has a wonderful sense of place and uses the Florida landscape, particularly the waters, to tie together various ends of this story. The title, Dead Low Tide, refers to a point where water recedes just enough so one can consider swimming before the deeper waters return. Mention is made of this tide early on and it plays a role in that denouement that threatens all that Andy cares about. This is a fine book, with sharp characterizations and a fine introduction to MacDonald's novels.
July 31, 2025
I finished Dead Low Tide by John D. MacDonald recently, but I wasn't sure what to say about it. I was quite excited to read the book before I started. Two of my favorite authors shower praise onto John D. MacDonald...Dean Koontz in the introduction, and Stephen King on the back cover. I figure if two of the all-time greats look up to this guy, this book must be BRILLIANT! You know...it might have been, maybe I just didn't get it. The story seemed unnecessarily slow in parts, and I had a hard time getting through it. Admittedly, I was pleased when I finished. I did want to know how it ended, and now I do, but at times, the road getting to the end was a boring one. Again...maybe it's just me.
Andy McClintock finds himself in a favorable position with his boss and an awkward position with his boss's wife. When his boss is murdered with Andy's harpoon gun, all eyes are on Andy, and his friendship with his boss's wife doesn't help his situation any. Can Andy and a couple of unexpected allies prove who killed John Long?
I'm giving Dead Low Tide 3-stars. I did finish and was glad I did. As I mentioned above, it wasn't the easiest story for me to get through.
Andy McClintock finds himself in a favorable position with his boss and an awkward position with his boss's wife. When his boss is murdered with Andy's harpoon gun, all eyes are on Andy, and his friendship with his boss's wife doesn't help his situation any. Can Andy and a couple of unexpected allies prove who killed John Long?
I'm giving Dead Low Tide 3-stars. I did finish and was glad I did. As I mentioned above, it wasn't the easiest story for me to get through.
May 26, 2021
Dead Low Tide is a largely by-the-numbers thriller in which a loner working-stiff is framed for murder. He takes it upon himself to solve what the local cops can’t and won’t, and in the process gets into and out of scrapes of ever increasing precarity. Andrew McClintock is an everyman fantasy: liked by his few guy friends, adored by the sultry single woman in his neighborhood, and chased by his rich boss’s wife. When he’s not drinking, he goes fishing, and later falls asleep sunburned in his boxers with the ocean breeze blowing in his open window. For as stock and at times ridiculous as all this is, MacDonald elevates Dead Low Tide from something indistinguishable by all that he gets right: the wish-you-were-here descriptions of the sticky wet humidity and sun of the Florida coast, and the disorienting grind of societal change and the ways it fuels the yearning for nostalgia. But most of all he strips bare the base desires that drive us, and that we all too often delude ourselves into dressing up with noble intentions.
September 5, 2017
This is my second John D. MacDonald book; and I have to say the intro by Dean Koontz (another favorite author) helped me appreciate MacDonald's writing all the more - even though, oddly enough, Dead Low Tide did not have the insight into a type of profession that the other book I read had.
Anyhow, MacDonald's writing is a look into the past - when people smoked, when men were men and women were the "little lady". However, MacDonald treats his female characters much like Heinlein - the male characters under estimate them and they are strong, capable people in their own right. This is your standard murder mystery where the main character must figure out the murder to clear his own name. Good twists and turns to the plot; but the book is mainly character driven, which is what I usually prefer. MacDonald's writing is wonderful, and I understand why he is an author that other authors refer to in their own novels.
Anyhow, MacDonald's writing is a look into the past - when people smoked, when men were men and women were the "little lady". However, MacDonald treats his female characters much like Heinlein - the male characters under estimate them and they are strong, capable people in their own right. This is your standard murder mystery where the main character must figure out the murder to clear his own name. Good twists and turns to the plot; but the book is mainly character driven, which is what I usually prefer. MacDonald's writing is wonderful, and I understand why he is an author that other authors refer to in their own novels.
July 29, 2022
"She's a big brown slim-wasted blonde with a sturdy frame, extra-long legs, a face a bit too round for beauty, with the eyes being the best part. Eyes the shade of wine vinegar... She is a Midwest blonde and she is something they seem to be growing out there these last few years. Big girls who look smooth and tight and well fitted into their skin. Out there when three of them come down the sidewalk abreast there is something overpowering about them, and you feel that your masculine ego is being hemmed in by a thicket of long, long legs. And they all seem to have an odd, casual lack of any physical self-consciousness. Their splendid bodies are not something to be aware of. Just something they want to keep clean, tanned and at the proper temperature."
April 3, 2023
Renewed acquaintance with an old friend..
I discovered Travis McGee about 50 years ago and read them all. I went on to read many other John D. MacDonald books over the years and have yet to find one that I didn't enjoy. I picked up "Dead Low Tide" as a Kindle deal and have had it in reserve for years. Needing an escape I went thru my library and saw this book and decided it was now time. As usual if was a solid story, with interesting characters , and it held up pretty well despite being written in the early 1950s. I highly recommend any John D. book with emphasis on the McGee series and the stand alone Condominium.
I discovered Travis McGee about 50 years ago and read them all. I went on to read many other John D. MacDonald books over the years and have yet to find one that I didn't enjoy. I picked up "Dead Low Tide" as a Kindle deal and have had it in reserve for years. Needing an escape I went thru my library and saw this book and decided it was now time. As usual if was a solid story, with interesting characters , and it held up pretty well despite being written in the early 1950s. I highly recommend any John D. book with emphasis on the McGee series and the stand alone Condominium.
October 9, 2018
Clearly a Travis McGee precursor.
Great commentary on Florida development. The protagonist, McClintock is clearly a precursor to Travis McGee. He speaks as if telling a story to a friend which comes off well.
The details of the story are unpredictable enough to hold a readers interest.
Some of the details are quite well done such as knowledgeable comments on fishing on Florida West coast.
Not only does the reader get to know the protagonist better, but the protagonist is learning about himself as the dialogue progresses.
Great commentary on Florida development. The protagonist, McClintock is clearly a precursor to Travis McGee. He speaks as if telling a story to a friend which comes off well.
The details of the story are unpredictable enough to hold a readers interest.
Some of the details are quite well done such as knowledgeable comments on fishing on Florida West coast.
Not only does the reader get to know the protagonist better, but the protagonist is learning about himself as the dialogue progresses.
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