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Travis McGee #8
One Fearful Yellow Eye
How do you extort $600,000 from a dying man? Someone had done it very quietly and skillfully to the husband of Travis McGee's ex-girlfriend. McGee flies to Chicago to help untangle the mess and discovers that although Dr. Fortner Geis had led an exemplary life, there were those who'd take advantage of one "indiscretion" and bring down the whole family. McGee also discovers he likes a few members of the family far too much to let that happen....
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First published January 1, 1966
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About the author
John D. MacDonald
567 books1,370 followersJohn D. MacDonald was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, and educated at the Universities of Pennsylvania, Syracuse and Harvard, where he took an MBA in 1939. During WW2, he rose to the rank of Colonel, and while serving in the Army and in the Far East, sent a short story to his wife for sale, successfully. He served in the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations. After the war, he decided to try writing for a year, to see if he could make a living. Over 500 short stories and 70 novels resulted, including 21 Travis McGee novels.
Following complications of an earlier heart bypass operation, MacDonald slipped into a coma on December 10 and died at age 70, on December 28, 1986, in St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was survived by his wife Dorothy (1911-1989) and a son, Maynard.
In the years since his death MacDonald has been praised by authors as diverse as Stephen King, Spider Robinson, Jimmy Buffett, Kingsley Amis and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Thirty-three years after his passing the Travis McGee novels are still in print.
Following complications of an earlier heart bypass operation, MacDonald slipped into a coma on December 10 and died at age 70, on December 28, 1986, in St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was survived by his wife Dorothy (1911-1989) and a son, Maynard.
In the years since his death MacDonald has been praised by authors as diverse as Stephen King, Spider Robinson, Jimmy Buffett, Kingsley Amis and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Thirty-three years after his passing the Travis McGee novels are still in print.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 216 reviews
October 17, 2020
As research for a novel I'm writing, I'm reading detective fiction and ripping off everything of value. My story takes place in L.A. of the early '90s, but I'm traveling to all eras and hiring all types of sleuth as tour guide. Published in 1966, One Fearful Yellow Eye is the eighth Travis McGee mystery by John D. MacDonald. Most of the book takes place away from Bahia Mar in Fort Lauderdale as McGee arrives in Chicago to help an ex-lover named Gloria "Glory" Doyle Reis locate the estate of her widowed surgeon husband, which he mysteriously liquidated prior to his death. As with much of Elmore Leonard's output, I wouldn't call this a great novel. Like Leonard, MacDonald is a master who offers readers the chance to hang out with a great friend.
-- Chicago in November provides a strong contrast to McGee's tropical haunts in Fort Lauderdale. Glory's home on the lake offers a very different type of beach than McGee is accustomed to. I was quite relieved that L.A. caught a break and an author of MacDonald's perception focused his radar on Chicago.
Statistically it is probably the one city in the world where the most people have been killed in arguments over professional athletes. The middle of the city, where nine bridges cross a large sewage canal called the Chicago River, is beginning to look as if Martians had designed it. For untold years the city has limped along under what might well be the most arrogant, ruthless, and total political control in the country. In a kind of constant hysterical spasm of self-distaste, the city uglifies itself further each year by chopping away more trees and paving more areas for all those thousands of drivers who seem to have learned their art at Daytona.
-- There's so much telling. The first 20% of the book is Glory telling Travis about her late husband, his children, his profession, his personal relationships and laying all the exposition for the events to come. Imagine the first 25 minutes of Star Wars being Obi-Wan Kenobi telling Luke all about the Empire and Darth Vader. Not even a Jawa wanders through. McGee is doing what he does best, collecting information before swinging into action, but it's a lot to wade through. I can't believe that people stand around their kitchens talking as much as Glory does.
-- The other woman introduced in the first quarter of the book is Glory's twenty-five year old stepdaughter Heidi Geis Trumbill, an ice princess divorcee and artist who is acid to McGee's water base. I loved the way MacDonald made the two a study in a couple who are not each other's "type" and can't stand each other. Then they start to tolerate each other. Then they start to think about one another. By the end of the story, they can't think of being apart from each other. McGee is neither a fan of her attitude or her art and challenges her to prove she's an artist rather than a decorator by sketching a lamp.
"Oh, you mean draw you a cow that looks like a cow?" she said with a poisonous and knowing smile.
"Go ahead. Funny, but everybody I can think of right off the top of the head could sure God draw a fat realistic cow if they ever happened to want to. Hans Hoffman, Kline, Marca-Relli, Guston, Solomon, Rivers, Picasso, Kandinsky, Motherwell, Pollock. And you know it, baby. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. You dabblers bug me. You want the applause without all the thousands of hours of labor learning how to draw, how to make brush strokes, learning all the things that give painting some bite and bones even when you don't use any part of it. Go ahead, draw the lamp. Quick sketch. Prove I'm a jackass."
She trotted over, took the pencil and made some quick lines, then stuck her tongue tip out of the corner of her mouth and drew a more careful line, then she got up and threw the pencil at the paper. It went bouncing after a chair. "Shit!" she said. "So I fake it. Everybody does. And I get away with it."
"Suddenly I think I like you a little better, Mrs. Trumbill."
Her smile was wan and strained. "I'm underwhelmed, Mr. McGee. People don't talk to me like that often."
"Drenches out the glands, they say."
She studied me. "I suppose it's an approach, actually. You get nasty to a girl and it shocks her so she gets hung up. Nice try."
I gave her my most amiable grin. "Miss Pussycat, I have the feeling if some jolly experimental giant crammed us both buck naked into a one-man sleeping bag, we'd apologize to each other, get back to back, and try to get a little sleep."
"And that too is an absolutely transparent pass, damn you."
"Try me. You turn on my lights not at all, Miss Heidi."
"I damned well could if I should ever develop a taste for huge dull muscular men, but I'm afraid I put all that behind me when I reached sixteen. Can't we please finish whatever it is you came for and break this off?"
-- MacDonald's formula for these mysteries: a friend or friend-of-a-friend comes to McGee for help. Suggestions are made of nefarious or powerful interests trying to crush them. McGee gathers information for a long time. No other author (though I've read that Dick Francis does this very well) weaves intricate financial crime into their plots like MacDonald. A Florida real estate developer would be proud. McGee gets distracted by a woman also involved in the mystery. McGee finally goes to talk to the wrong character and shows them he knows too much. This character then tries to murder McGee, always in a remote location, usually knocking him unconscious first.
-- Terrific climax and villains. MacDonald ultimately uses the current events of the day to propel his story forward very well. I just would've liked more action throughout the story. The massive amounts of telling got long in the tooth for me.
-- Chicago in November provides a strong contrast to McGee's tropical haunts in Fort Lauderdale. Glory's home on the lake offers a very different type of beach than McGee is accustomed to. I was quite relieved that L.A. caught a break and an author of MacDonald's perception focused his radar on Chicago.
Statistically it is probably the one city in the world where the most people have been killed in arguments over professional athletes. The middle of the city, where nine bridges cross a large sewage canal called the Chicago River, is beginning to look as if Martians had designed it. For untold years the city has limped along under what might well be the most arrogant, ruthless, and total political control in the country. In a kind of constant hysterical spasm of self-distaste, the city uglifies itself further each year by chopping away more trees and paving more areas for all those thousands of drivers who seem to have learned their art at Daytona.
-- There's so much telling. The first 20% of the book is Glory telling Travis about her late husband, his children, his profession, his personal relationships and laying all the exposition for the events to come. Imagine the first 25 minutes of Star Wars being Obi-Wan Kenobi telling Luke all about the Empire and Darth Vader. Not even a Jawa wanders through. McGee is doing what he does best, collecting information before swinging into action, but it's a lot to wade through. I can't believe that people stand around their kitchens talking as much as Glory does.
-- The other woman introduced in the first quarter of the book is Glory's twenty-five year old stepdaughter Heidi Geis Trumbill, an ice princess divorcee and artist who is acid to McGee's water base. I loved the way MacDonald made the two a study in a couple who are not each other's "type" and can't stand each other. Then they start to tolerate each other. Then they start to think about one another. By the end of the story, they can't think of being apart from each other. McGee is neither a fan of her attitude or her art and challenges her to prove she's an artist rather than a decorator by sketching a lamp.
"Oh, you mean draw you a cow that looks like a cow?" she said with a poisonous and knowing smile.
"Go ahead. Funny, but everybody I can think of right off the top of the head could sure God draw a fat realistic cow if they ever happened to want to. Hans Hoffman, Kline, Marca-Relli, Guston, Solomon, Rivers, Picasso, Kandinsky, Motherwell, Pollock. And you know it, baby. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. You dabblers bug me. You want the applause without all the thousands of hours of labor learning how to draw, how to make brush strokes, learning all the things that give painting some bite and bones even when you don't use any part of it. Go ahead, draw the lamp. Quick sketch. Prove I'm a jackass."
She trotted over, took the pencil and made some quick lines, then stuck her tongue tip out of the corner of her mouth and drew a more careful line, then she got up and threw the pencil at the paper. It went bouncing after a chair. "Shit!" she said. "So I fake it. Everybody does. And I get away with it."
"Suddenly I think I like you a little better, Mrs. Trumbill."
Her smile was wan and strained. "I'm underwhelmed, Mr. McGee. People don't talk to me like that often."
"Drenches out the glands, they say."
She studied me. "I suppose it's an approach, actually. You get nasty to a girl and it shocks her so she gets hung up. Nice try."
I gave her my most amiable grin. "Miss Pussycat, I have the feeling if some jolly experimental giant crammed us both buck naked into a one-man sleeping bag, we'd apologize to each other, get back to back, and try to get a little sleep."
"And that too is an absolutely transparent pass, damn you."
"Try me. You turn on my lights not at all, Miss Heidi."
"I damned well could if I should ever develop a taste for huge dull muscular men, but I'm afraid I put all that behind me when I reached sixteen. Can't we please finish whatever it is you came for and break this off?"
-- MacDonald's formula for these mysteries: a friend or friend-of-a-friend comes to McGee for help. Suggestions are made of nefarious or powerful interests trying to crush them. McGee gathers information for a long time. No other author (though I've read that Dick Francis does this very well) weaves intricate financial crime into their plots like MacDonald. A Florida real estate developer would be proud. McGee gets distracted by a woman also involved in the mystery. McGee finally goes to talk to the wrong character and shows them he knows too much. This character then tries to murder McGee, always in a remote location, usually knocking him unconscious first.
-- Terrific climax and villains. MacDonald ultimately uses the current events of the day to propel his story forward very well. I just would've liked more action throughout the story. The massive amounts of telling got long in the tooth for me.
September 22, 2015
It’d been twenty-some years since I’d read the Travis McGee books, and when I heard that a movie version of The Deep Blue Good-Bye was in the works, I’d started picking up copies in used bookstores to give the series another read. I’ve had moments where I’ve started to regret that decision.
While I had fond memories of MacDonald’s tales of the Florida beach bum who makes his living recovering funds that were stolen by semi-legal means or conned from the victims, re-reading these early books from the’60s with a 2010 perspective is starting to depress me because the attitudes and portrayals of women are so painful that they make an episode of Mad Men look like feminist propaganda.
McGee is summoned to Chicago by an old girlfriend, Glory, who had married Fortner Geis, a prominent and respected surgeon who has recently died after a long illness. Geis should have had a large estate to leave to Glory and his two grown children from a previous marriage, but all involved are shocked to find that Geis had spent his final months converting his funds to cash and now the money is gone. McGee’s first theory is that it has to be some kind of blackmail, but what kind of threat could make a dying man leave nothing for his family?
I often laughed out loud at how dated some of this comes across. Geis is repeatedly described as a good and honorable man, yet it’s known to most of the characters that he once had a relationship with his nurse that started with an act that was borderline date rape. He also had an illegitimate daughter that he deliberately never met, even when he was dying, but everyone still thinks he was a swell guy because he set up a small trust fund for her and had private detectives check up on her regularly.
The most cringe inducing parts involve a woman who is known by all the characters to be ‘frigid’. Of course, McGee can help her solve that problem, and you can imagine what kind of therapy he plans to use.
But for all the flaws, these books still hold a kind of charm for me. The mystery of why Geis gave up all his money is intriguing, and McGee’s brooding commentary about modern life circa 1966 still made this an good crime novel. Plus, when MacDonald isn’t sharing his views on women, he regularly delivers writing gold. Check out this sample when McGee is flying into Chicago and bad weather is making the landing tricky:
Even with the buffeting, there is an impression of silence inside the aircraft at such times. People stare outward, but they are looking inward, tasting of themselves and thinking of promises and defeats.
Anyone who has ever white knuckled an armrest during a bad flight should be able to relate to that, and it’s these moments that’ll keep me going through this series.
While I had fond memories of MacDonald’s tales of the Florida beach bum who makes his living recovering funds that were stolen by semi-legal means or conned from the victims, re-reading these early books from the’60s with a 2010 perspective is starting to depress me because the attitudes and portrayals of women are so painful that they make an episode of Mad Men look like feminist propaganda.
McGee is summoned to Chicago by an old girlfriend, Glory, who had married Fortner Geis, a prominent and respected surgeon who has recently died after a long illness. Geis should have had a large estate to leave to Glory and his two grown children from a previous marriage, but all involved are shocked to find that Geis had spent his final months converting his funds to cash and now the money is gone. McGee’s first theory is that it has to be some kind of blackmail, but what kind of threat could make a dying man leave nothing for his family?
I often laughed out loud at how dated some of this comes across. Geis is repeatedly described as a good and honorable man, yet it’s known to most of the characters that he once had a relationship with his nurse that started with an act that was borderline date rape. He also had an illegitimate daughter that he deliberately never met, even when he was dying, but everyone still thinks he was a swell guy because he set up a small trust fund for her and had private detectives check up on her regularly.
The most cringe inducing parts involve a woman who is known by all the characters to be ‘frigid’. Of course, McGee can help her solve that problem, and you can imagine what kind of therapy he plans to use.
But for all the flaws, these books still hold a kind of charm for me. The mystery of why Geis gave up all his money is intriguing, and McGee’s brooding commentary about modern life circa 1966 still made this an good crime novel. Plus, when MacDonald isn’t sharing his views on women, he regularly delivers writing gold. Check out this sample when McGee is flying into Chicago and bad weather is making the landing tricky:
Even with the buffeting, there is an impression of silence inside the aircraft at such times. People stare outward, but they are looking inward, tasting of themselves and thinking of promises and defeats.
Anyone who has ever white knuckled an armrest during a bad flight should be able to relate to that, and it’s these moments that’ll keep me going through this series.
December 4, 2017
"A man will let his money be taken only when the alternative is something he cannot endure."
- John D. MacDonald, One Fearful Yellow Eye
McGee does Chicago. I liked it, but didn't love it. Sometimes MacDonald takes McGee away from Florida and it seems to almost work, but I still think I prefer McGee on a boat to McGee in Chicago, in the snow. As a favor to an old flame, McGee goes to Chicago because her ex-husband's estate has been emptied and the relatives all think she did it. McGee looks into the hows and whys of the money disappearing. McGee's views (and I'd presume to a bit MacDonald's) on homosexuals and Blacks appear in this novel and they are nearly there, but only reach the uncanny valley of sensitivity towards other groups:
"I'm always skeptical of the male who makes a big public deal about how he hates fairies, how they turn his stomach, how he'd like to beat the hell out of them. The queens are certainly distasteful, but the average homosexual in the visual and performing arts is usually a human being a little bit brighter and more perceptive than most."
I have to remind myself that this was published in 1966. He is growing. Language like that was seen as progressive in the 60s, in certain circles. Hell, language like that might sound progressive in Texas, Idaho, or Arizona in certain circles now. I seem to always find areas where MacDonald nearly writes a perfect novel, but a couple things just block it for me. He is one of those writers I keep coming back from and keep ending up just a bit frustrated (and not just because I keep wanting to enroll him in sensitivty training classes). His books have the potential for real genius and the more I read the more I see this potential. Individually, however, this book doesn't get close.
- John D. MacDonald, One Fearful Yellow Eye
McGee does Chicago. I liked it, but didn't love it. Sometimes MacDonald takes McGee away from Florida and it seems to almost work, but I still think I prefer McGee on a boat to McGee in Chicago, in the snow. As a favor to an old flame, McGee goes to Chicago because her ex-husband's estate has been emptied and the relatives all think she did it. McGee looks into the hows and whys of the money disappearing. McGee's views (and I'd presume to a bit MacDonald's) on homosexuals and Blacks appear in this novel and they are nearly there, but only reach the uncanny valley of sensitivity towards other groups:
"I'm always skeptical of the male who makes a big public deal about how he hates fairies, how they turn his stomach, how he'd like to beat the hell out of them. The queens are certainly distasteful, but the average homosexual in the visual and performing arts is usually a human being a little bit brighter and more perceptive than most."
I have to remind myself that this was published in 1966. He is growing. Language like that was seen as progressive in the 60s, in certain circles. Hell, language like that might sound progressive in Texas, Idaho, or Arizona in certain circles now. I seem to always find areas where MacDonald nearly writes a perfect novel, but a couple things just block it for me. He is one of those writers I keep coming back from and keep ending up just a bit frustrated (and not just because I keep wanting to enroll him in sensitivty training classes). His books have the potential for real genius and the more I read the more I see this potential. Individually, however, this book doesn't get close.
August 9, 2021
McGee can actually be boring and a little self righteous
OK, there is a mystery and some action but the novel seems to be primarily about sex. Not just what is between the legs but also what is between the ears and McGee's observations and thoughts about it. Also observations and thoughts about Chicago (he doesn't like it), politics, doctors, homosexuality, race, LSD, Hugh Heffner and Playboy, money, the environment, violence and undoubtedly things I have forgotten.
OK, there is a mystery and some action but the novel seems to be primarily about sex. Not just what is between the legs but also what is between the ears and McGee's observations and thoughts about it. Also observations and thoughts about Chicago (he doesn't like it), politics, doctors, homosexuality, race, LSD, Hugh Heffner and Playboy, money, the environment, violence and undoubtedly things I have forgotten.
January 23, 2021
"One Fearful Yellow Eye” is the eighth Travis McGee novel. If you are not familiar with this series, McGee lives on a 52-foot houseboat in Fort Lauderdale. He has no regular job, except, when he needs funds, he does “salvage work” and, by salvage work, he does not mean deep- sea diving for buried treasure. Instead, he does favors for friends or friends of friends who have lost or been conned out of something of value. His fee is fifty percent of the recovery, if there is one. His specialty is helping out wounded sparrows who the world has chewed up and spit out. These novels are filled not just with dark mysteries, but also philosophy and pondering.
This novel, however, does not feature the ocean or the sands or the rolling waves crashing on the beach. McGee receives a call from a friend in Chicago who has no one else she can turn to for help and, reluctantly, he flies into Chicago and it seems, at first, that the entire city is against his beach bumming instincts. He is cynical about the flight and about the city. But, Gloria is a dear friend he had once rescued on a beach in Florida and he can’t abandon her. Gloria has married into big money with an older gentleman, a rich surgeon, who died after a short period of time. His grown children resented the presence of this young, vivacious woman in their father’s life and, when, it is discovered, after his death, that his vast estate had been liquidated and disappeared into thin air, relations between this family are not good. Gloria, who barely has enough to last a few months, has no idea what happened to all the money and her late husband’s children think of her as a conniving she-devil who siphoned all the funds out and is ready to disappear with some boyfriend from her past.
Bit by bit, McGee sets out to discuss the matter with the principals involved and unravels family secrets and bitterness and psychological problems. There are scandals upon scandals hidden there. Much of the book moves slowly with character development as McGee comes no closer to the answer, but, by the end, events move swiftly and things unravel quicker than he can keep them together.
This is yet another terrific entry into the series and, in the end, quite satisfying even though the image of the fearful yellow eye will be left etched upon your memories.
This novel, however, does not feature the ocean or the sands or the rolling waves crashing on the beach. McGee receives a call from a friend in Chicago who has no one else she can turn to for help and, reluctantly, he flies into Chicago and it seems, at first, that the entire city is against his beach bumming instincts. He is cynical about the flight and about the city. But, Gloria is a dear friend he had once rescued on a beach in Florida and he can’t abandon her. Gloria has married into big money with an older gentleman, a rich surgeon, who died after a short period of time. His grown children resented the presence of this young, vivacious woman in their father’s life and, when, it is discovered, after his death, that his vast estate had been liquidated and disappeared into thin air, relations between this family are not good. Gloria, who barely has enough to last a few months, has no idea what happened to all the money and her late husband’s children think of her as a conniving she-devil who siphoned all the funds out and is ready to disappear with some boyfriend from her past.
Bit by bit, McGee sets out to discuss the matter with the principals involved and unravels family secrets and bitterness and psychological problems. There are scandals upon scandals hidden there. Much of the book moves slowly with character development as McGee comes no closer to the answer, but, by the end, events move swiftly and things unravel quicker than he can keep them together.
This is yet another terrific entry into the series and, in the end, quite satisfying even though the image of the fearful yellow eye will be left etched upon your memories.
December 7, 2010
The eighth installment of the Travis McGee series takes place in Chicago rather than in Florida, and thus most of the usual cast, save for McGee himself, is MIA. It is not a book that would have endeared MacDonald to the Chicago Chamber of Commerce. The author was obviously not very fond of the Chicago, and through McGee makes some fairly cutting comments about the Windy City and its inhabitants.
For those unfamiliar with the series, McGee is a self-styled "salvage" expert. If someone is defrauded and has no legal recourse, McGee will use his considerable talents to recover what has been lost. His fee is fifty percent of the recovery; expenses come off the top.
In these books there is always a fragile woman who has been badly treated, sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally, and often both. In addition to recovering what has been stolen by the bad guys, it will be McGee's job to restore the poor woman to a state of health and physical well-being--unless, of course, she manages to get killed along the way.
In this case, one of these previously broken birds (the book's description, not mine), Glory Doyle, turns to McGee for help a second time. Her husband, a respected Chicago physician, has recently died and Glory discovers that during the last year of her husband's life, someone had managed to bleed him of his entire fortune. McGee comes to Chicago to chase down the money and punish the evil-doers. In the normal course of things, he will have to rescue a beautiful but frigid blonde who has no idea why she hates sex. Can McGee cure the poor woman and turn her into a sexual dynamo while at the same time he deals out justice to the bad guys? Is the Pope Catholic?
As the book progresses, we also get a heavy dose of McGee's philosophy as he ponders the mysteries of the universe and the failings of his fellow man. He's particularly hard on Chicago legend Hugh Hefner and the Playboy lifestyle.
This was in its day, one of the most popular mystery/suspense series ever written. But sadly it has not held up very well over time. One naturally expects that a book that was originally published in 1966 is going to show its age, but these books now sound positively archaic and re-reading them is almost always disappointing. When I first discovered the paperback reprints of these books back in my youth, I devoured them and couldn't wait to find another. Now, every couple of years or so, I pull one off the shelf, hoping to rediscover some of the magic that first drew me to McGee and his adventures. Unhappily, I haven't found it again in a long time. But that won't stop me from trying again in another couple of years.
For those unfamiliar with the series, McGee is a self-styled "salvage" expert. If someone is defrauded and has no legal recourse, McGee will use his considerable talents to recover what has been lost. His fee is fifty percent of the recovery; expenses come off the top.
In these books there is always a fragile woman who has been badly treated, sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally, and often both. In addition to recovering what has been stolen by the bad guys, it will be McGee's job to restore the poor woman to a state of health and physical well-being--unless, of course, she manages to get killed along the way.
In this case, one of these previously broken birds (the book's description, not mine), Glory Doyle, turns to McGee for help a second time. Her husband, a respected Chicago physician, has recently died and Glory discovers that during the last year of her husband's life, someone had managed to bleed him of his entire fortune. McGee comes to Chicago to chase down the money and punish the evil-doers. In the normal course of things, he will have to rescue a beautiful but frigid blonde who has no idea why she hates sex. Can McGee cure the poor woman and turn her into a sexual dynamo while at the same time he deals out justice to the bad guys? Is the Pope Catholic?
As the book progresses, we also get a heavy dose of McGee's philosophy as he ponders the mysteries of the universe and the failings of his fellow man. He's particularly hard on Chicago legend Hugh Hefner and the Playboy lifestyle.
This was in its day, one of the most popular mystery/suspense series ever written. But sadly it has not held up very well over time. One naturally expects that a book that was originally published in 1966 is going to show its age, but these books now sound positively archaic and re-reading them is almost always disappointing. When I first discovered the paperback reprints of these books back in my youth, I devoured them and couldn't wait to find another. Now, every couple of years or so, I pull one off the shelf, hoping to rediscover some of the magic that first drew me to McGee and his adventures. Unhappily, I haven't found it again in a long time. But that won't stop me from trying again in another couple of years.
April 22, 2019
Only 2.5 Stars.
McGee away from Florida, away from nature mostly. Not his best arena.
As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.
There is one amazing quote that I keep remembering. MacDonald doesn’t like Chicago much, and on the lakeshore, on the deck of a house, he looks out...
The temperature was dropping, the wind increasing out of the north, and in the last grayness of the day I saw a full line of red in the west, like distant cities burning.
There are some fine and fun moments in this book, but there are also an endless series of poorly constructed rants on "modern life" (true and prescient in many ways), along with some dangerously silly pseudo-psychotherapies.
The book drags on through the middle and then the pace picks up a bit, but even the action sequences are bracketed by inconsequential verbiage.
McGee even brags repeatedly about his mastery of women and female psychology-- very distasteful.
Finally, there several highly unlikely info-dumps, an unlikely climax, and a very dissatisfying ending.
Overall, a terrible mess.
Lady Gloria's Mercedes 230SL, my favourite of all time
Full size image here
Glory and the car were beautifully matched. They were both small, whippy, and well-made, and seemed to understand each other. There was that good feel of road-hunger, of the car that wants to reach and gobble more than you let it.
In 1966, McGee considers relative safety of mode of travel...
Just as, until we lost an astronaut, travel in orbit was the safest travel man ever devised with 0% mortality for millions upon millions of passenger miles. Safer than wheelchairs.
*** Technically, the only deaths IN space were the three crew of Soyuz 11 on June 30 1971, who died when their cabin depressurized at an altitude of 168km. The official definition of the beginning of space is 100km, so they just qualify. All the other space-related deaths have been on the ground, during launch, or re-entry below 100km.
From 1966 -
So in the night wind, the lake stank, and I went back in out of the wind, and thought of the endless garbage barges that are trundled out of Miami into the blue bright Atlantic. People had thought the lake would last forever. When the sea begins to stink, man better have some fresh green planets to colonize, because this one is going to be used up.
Wonderful -
At the corner of Huron something that was entirely girl came swinging along, and wrapped the whole thing up for me. Nearly six lithe feet of her, and unmistakably great handloomed tweeds in conservative cut, lizard purse and walking shoes and hair chestnut-brown and gleaming with health, styled with no trickery, bobbing to her resolute stride, and one gloved finger hooked through the string of a parcel wrapped in gold foil paper, and on her mouth a lovely secret smile, perhaps part memory, part anticipation, and part appreciation of the day and of the good feel of taking long strides, and part being lovely and young. There is something about seeing one like that which tries to break your heart. You will never know her, but you want it all to be great for her, all the parts of it, the wine, the Weather, the food, the people, the beds, the kids, the love, and the being old.
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...
McGee away from Florida, away from nature mostly. Not his best arena.
As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.
There is one amazing quote that I keep remembering. MacDonald doesn’t like Chicago much, and on the lakeshore, on the deck of a house, he looks out...
The temperature was dropping, the wind increasing out of the north, and in the last grayness of the day I saw a full line of red in the west, like distant cities burning.
There are some fine and fun moments in this book, but there are also an endless series of poorly constructed rants on "modern life" (true and prescient in many ways), along with some dangerously silly pseudo-psychotherapies.
The book drags on through the middle and then the pace picks up a bit, but even the action sequences are bracketed by inconsequential verbiage.
McGee even brags repeatedly about his mastery of women and female psychology-- very distasteful.
Finally, there several highly unlikely info-dumps, an unlikely climax, and a very dissatisfying ending.
Overall, a terrible mess.
Lady Gloria's Mercedes 230SL, my favourite of all time
Full size image here
Glory and the car were beautifully matched. They were both small, whippy, and well-made, and seemed to understand each other. There was that good feel of road-hunger, of the car that wants to reach and gobble more than you let it.
In 1966, McGee considers relative safety of mode of travel...
Just as, until we lost an astronaut, travel in orbit was the safest travel man ever devised with 0% mortality for millions upon millions of passenger miles. Safer than wheelchairs.
*** Technically, the only deaths IN space were the three crew of Soyuz 11 on June 30 1971, who died when their cabin depressurized at an altitude of 168km. The official definition of the beginning of space is 100km, so they just qualify. All the other space-related deaths have been on the ground, during launch, or re-entry below 100km.
From 1966 -
So in the night wind, the lake stank, and I went back in out of the wind, and thought of the endless garbage barges that are trundled out of Miami into the blue bright Atlantic. People had thought the lake would last forever. When the sea begins to stink, man better have some fresh green planets to colonize, because this one is going to be used up.
Wonderful -
At the corner of Huron something that was entirely girl came swinging along, and wrapped the whole thing up for me. Nearly six lithe feet of her, and unmistakably great handloomed tweeds in conservative cut, lizard purse and walking shoes and hair chestnut-brown and gleaming with health, styled with no trickery, bobbing to her resolute stride, and one gloved finger hooked through the string of a parcel wrapped in gold foil paper, and on her mouth a lovely secret smile, perhaps part memory, part anticipation, and part appreciation of the day and of the good feel of taking long strides, and part being lovely and young. There is something about seeing one like that which tries to break your heart. You will never know her, but you want it all to be great for her, all the parts of it, the wine, the Weather, the food, the people, the beds, the kids, the love, and the being old.
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...
October 31, 2016
There is, I thought, almost no useful thing the human animal will not in his eternal perversity misuse, whether it be alcohol, gasoline, gunpowder, aspirin, chocolate fudge, mescaline, or LSD
I'm not sure what happened here.
I've really enjoyed all of the Travis McGee books up to here. One of them I think I thought slogged a little bit, but it was able to recover in its own way. This one just never seemed to really get going, until maybe the last 20 pages, but then it felt more like MacDonald felt like he should actually put some action into the novel.
Lately, I've been in a 'reading' mood, so I don't think the way I was trudging through the book and not being able to get really into it was just because of my own shitty attention span.
One of McGee's women 'friends' who he had helped out (Kempers review of this book where he said the portrayal of women makes Mad Men look like Feminist Propaganda made me laugh, and it's sort of accurate, although women are very weirdly portrayed in MacDonald's novels, it's sort of a bizarre mix of sexual liberation and deep down women want to be a no-strings attached fuck buddy with hulking / morse beach bums (let's include Meyer in this, too. It's not just McGee. But what's weird about the whole thing are the 'political' asides or musings that go on in McGee's head, he knows he's a shit, he knows the world is shit, he knows women get the short end of the stick and that everything is becoming bland and homogenized through consumerism, blah blah blah... but still a few weeks on a boat off the Florida Coast with McGee is a fairly standard treatment in these novels for anything that ails a broken female character....
I think this quote kind of gives a feeling of the weird spot women occupy in these novels...
I think my shtick, Heidi, is that I enjoy all aspects of a woman. I tlike the way their minds work. I like the sometimes wonderful and sometimes nutty ways they figure things out and relate themselves to reality. I like the arguments, the laughs, the quarrels, the competitions, the making up. A nearby girl makes the sky bluer, the drinks better, the food tastier. She gives the days more texture, and you know it is happening to her in the same way.
How this relates to Heidi Geis Trumbill is that I have the feeling it is a damned shame you stand outside the gates with a kind of wistful curiosity about what it's like inside. I want to be sort of a guide, showing off new and pretty country to the tourist. Life is so damned valuable and so totally miraculous, and they give you such a stingy little hunk of it from womb to tomb, you out to use all the parts of it there are. I guess I would say that I want to be friends. A friend wants to help a friend. I want to peel away that suspicious and contention because I don't think it's really what you're like. If we can get friendship going, then maybe we can get a good physical intimacy going, and from t hat we can fall into a kind of love, or fall into an affection close to love. If it happens, it adds up to more than the sum of the two people, and it is that extra part out of nowhere that has made all the songs and the poetry and the art.
I'm still in my parenthetical aside.... what I realized while typing out that kind of long passage (which is kind of beautiful and creepy since it's basically him rationalizing to a woman who doesn't like physical intimacy how he wants to fix her, is that noble to want to help someone in this way, can a life not be happily lived with almost no physical interaction with other human beings?)... yep still in my aside... but what I realized is that this isn't a crime novel. But a crime had to be added, this is MacDonald's own weird attempt at writing a love story for McGee (actually his second, one of the first novels had the element included, but it ended so badly). The crime just had to be sort of tacked around McGee falling for a woman unlike most of the broken 'birds' (as they are called sometimes) and beach hounds that normally show up in the novels. .
I've let this whole thing get away from me....)... right so one of his friends he helped out, her husband dies. He was well off but now the money is gone. She calls McGee to come up from Sunny Florida to Wintery Chicago to help find out what happens. And that is what he does.
That's my book report and rambling aside. Off to the next McGee novel soon, and hopefully I'll be back to enjoying them again!
I'm not sure what happened here.
I've really enjoyed all of the Travis McGee books up to here. One of them I think I thought slogged a little bit, but it was able to recover in its own way. This one just never seemed to really get going, until maybe the last 20 pages, but then it felt more like MacDonald felt like he should actually put some action into the novel.
Lately, I've been in a 'reading' mood, so I don't think the way I was trudging through the book and not being able to get really into it was just because of my own shitty attention span.
One of McGee's women 'friends' who he had helped out (Kempers review of this book where he said the portrayal of women makes Mad Men look like Feminist Propaganda made me laugh, and it's sort of accurate, although women are very weirdly portrayed in MacDonald's novels, it's sort of a bizarre mix of sexual liberation and deep down women want to be a no-strings attached fuck buddy with hulking / morse beach bums (let's include Meyer in this, too. It's not just McGee. But what's weird about the whole thing are the 'political' asides or musings that go on in McGee's head, he knows he's a shit, he knows the world is shit, he knows women get the short end of the stick and that everything is becoming bland and homogenized through consumerism, blah blah blah... but still a few weeks on a boat off the Florida Coast with McGee is a fairly standard treatment in these novels for anything that ails a broken female character....
I think this quote kind of gives a feeling of the weird spot women occupy in these novels...
I think my shtick, Heidi, is that I enjoy all aspects of a woman. I tlike the way their minds work. I like the sometimes wonderful and sometimes nutty ways they figure things out and relate themselves to reality. I like the arguments, the laughs, the quarrels, the competitions, the making up. A nearby girl makes the sky bluer, the drinks better, the food tastier. She gives the days more texture, and you know it is happening to her in the same way.
How this relates to Heidi Geis Trumbill is that I have the feeling it is a damned shame you stand outside the gates with a kind of wistful curiosity about what it's like inside. I want to be sort of a guide, showing off new and pretty country to the tourist. Life is so damned valuable and so totally miraculous, and they give you such a stingy little hunk of it from womb to tomb, you out to use all the parts of it there are. I guess I would say that I want to be friends. A friend wants to help a friend. I want to peel away that suspicious and contention because I don't think it's really what you're like. If we can get friendship going, then maybe we can get a good physical intimacy going, and from t hat we can fall into a kind of love, or fall into an affection close to love. If it happens, it adds up to more than the sum of the two people, and it is that extra part out of nowhere that has made all the songs and the poetry and the art.
I'm still in my parenthetical aside.... what I realized while typing out that kind of long passage (which is kind of beautiful and creepy since it's basically him rationalizing to a woman who doesn't like physical intimacy how he wants to fix her, is that noble to want to help someone in this way, can a life not be happily lived with almost no physical interaction with other human beings?)... yep still in my aside... but what I realized is that this isn't a crime novel. But a crime had to be added, this is MacDonald's own weird attempt at writing a love story for McGee (actually his second, one of the first novels had the element included, but it ended so badly). The crime just had to be sort of tacked around McGee falling for a woman unlike most of the broken 'birds' (as they are called sometimes) and beach hounds that normally show up in the novels. .
I've let this whole thing get away from me....)... right so one of his friends he helped out, her husband dies. He was well off but now the money is gone. She calls McGee to come up from Sunny Florida to Wintery Chicago to help find out what happens. And that is what he does.
That's my book report and rambling aside. Off to the next McGee novel soon, and hopefully I'll be back to enjoying them again!
May 10, 2021
One Fearful Yellow Eye is the 8th book in Travis McGee mystery series by John D. MacDonald. Travis McGee is a beach bum in Florida who gets involved in cases, trying to help people get out of some sort of trouble. He's not technically an official PI, but somewhat more like The Equalizer, but one who works more by the seat of his pants and his intuition in helping these individuals.
McGee gets a phone call from an old friend, Glory, who is now living in Chicago. The two had a past, when Glory got into serious trouble back in Florida and McGee helped her out and helped her find herself again. He also introduced her to her husband and stood in at their wedding. Her husband Dr. Foster Geis has passed away and she has now discovered that his estate has somehow disappeared and that Foster's children from a previous marriage believe that Glory has hidden it someplace. McGee agrees to go to Chicago to help.
Glory is the good Dr's 2nd wife. While his first wife was dying, he had a relationship with his house-keeper's daughter and she got pregnant by him. She was married off and he helped fund the child's life. He also had a relationship with his scrub nurse which had been broken off. Money he had set aside for Glory and his two adult children (50 / 25 / 25) has disappeared. Foster had removed it from trust funds and converted to cash. His financial adviser provides as much info as possible to McGee and McGee begins to check out the children, the cook, the nurse and others in his investigation.
McGee struggles trying to find out what happened but thinks Foster may have been black mailed about something in his past. I'll leave the plot at that. I always like Travis McGee. He's a straight shooter and a trust worthy ally. I found the middle of this story got sort of muddy, almost too much description and time spent with McGee speculating on life, his past and his surroundings. But it still moves along and when McGee begins to grasp the plot, it moves at a high speed pace with sufficient action and tension to satisfy anyone. There is a mysterious sub-plot that comes to fruition at the end of the story, a fascinating unforeseen (by me anyway) conclusion.
The description of wintery Chicago even gave me chills. The characters are all well-defined and three dimensional. The story is all in all satisfying and an entertaining read. I had some doubts initially but thought the last chapters brought the story to new heights and made it worth starting and working through. (4.5 stars)
McGee gets a phone call from an old friend, Glory, who is now living in Chicago. The two had a past, when Glory got into serious trouble back in Florida and McGee helped her out and helped her find herself again. He also introduced her to her husband and stood in at their wedding. Her husband Dr. Foster Geis has passed away and she has now discovered that his estate has somehow disappeared and that Foster's children from a previous marriage believe that Glory has hidden it someplace. McGee agrees to go to Chicago to help.
Glory is the good Dr's 2nd wife. While his first wife was dying, he had a relationship with his house-keeper's daughter and she got pregnant by him. She was married off and he helped fund the child's life. He also had a relationship with his scrub nurse which had been broken off. Money he had set aside for Glory and his two adult children (50 / 25 / 25) has disappeared. Foster had removed it from trust funds and converted to cash. His financial adviser provides as much info as possible to McGee and McGee begins to check out the children, the cook, the nurse and others in his investigation.
McGee struggles trying to find out what happened but thinks Foster may have been black mailed about something in his past. I'll leave the plot at that. I always like Travis McGee. He's a straight shooter and a trust worthy ally. I found the middle of this story got sort of muddy, almost too much description and time spent with McGee speculating on life, his past and his surroundings. But it still moves along and when McGee begins to grasp the plot, it moves at a high speed pace with sufficient action and tension to satisfy anyone. There is a mysterious sub-plot that comes to fruition at the end of the story, a fascinating unforeseen (by me anyway) conclusion.
The description of wintery Chicago even gave me chills. The characters are all well-defined and three dimensional. The story is all in all satisfying and an entertaining read. I had some doubts initially but thought the last chapters brought the story to new heights and made it worth starting and working through. (4.5 stars)
July 16, 2020
This was never one of my favorite McGee novels and if this wasn't a book by John D. MacDonald and one of the Travis McGee series, and if I hadn't committed to re-reading all of these, I wouldn't have continued past the third chapter. No edge at all in basically the first half of the book. Just a lot of long torturous back story, delivered predominantly via long and torturous expository dialog as McGee interviews family members and hangers on to find out what secret led Fort Geis to liquidate his entire estate and leave none of it to his family members. The action does pick up in the second half as McGee does finally uncover the mystery and MacDonald, as usual, delivers a powerful set-piece climactic scene.
McGee's philosophizing and psycho-babble seems especially dated, the more so because it is belabored throughout. MacDonald was clearly not in a thriller mood as he wrote this one.
I'd say you'd have to have really liked the earlier McGee novels and be willing to give MacDonald a pass on this one if you were to continue on to read the next in the series (21 total). Please not another one like this.
McGee's philosophizing and psycho-babble seems especially dated, the more so because it is belabored throughout. MacDonald was clearly not in a thriller mood as he wrote this one.
I'd say you'd have to have really liked the earlier McGee novels and be willing to give MacDonald a pass on this one if you were to continue on to read the next in the series (21 total). Please not another one like this.
July 23, 2013
Marvelous Travis McGee, modern knight errant, here. Trav flies north to Chicago to help out an old friend who turns out to be a rich widow. The only trouble is nobody knows where all of her late husband's dough has gone. The brutal Chicago winter doesn't appeal to McGee, but he doesn't slow down to get to the bottom of things. This title reminds me why I like the series. Lee Child offers an insightful introduction to this reissue.
May 29, 2023
05/2015
I loved the first two in the series, but since then, I haven't been able to get interested in the plots. It's confusing, because the writing is great and there are always very interesting sections. I just don't love series in general. In this case, McGee, I find the books sprawling and uneven. I adored MacDonald's one off A Bullet For Cinderella (1955) - it was tighter, contained, very full but also shorter.
I loved the first two in the series, but since then, I haven't been able to get interested in the plots. It's confusing, because the writing is great and there are always very interesting sections. I just don't love series in general. In this case, McGee, I find the books sprawling and uneven. I adored MacDonald's one off A Bullet For Cinderella (1955) - it was tighter, contained, very full but also shorter.
January 23, 2021
Mid-20th Century North American Crime
1966 - This is my second read as I'm reading MacDonald's first 12 McGee books over before finishing them up. Why? Because either they seem over-rated, or I'm missing something.
HOOK - 3 stars: McGee is about to descend 'into that guck' of Chicago's O'Hare airport. "What am I doing here," he thinks. An old friend, Glory Doyle, has called for help. A damsel in distress, perfect for McGee.
PACE - 2 stars: Lots of ruminations about the past, or about the present conditions of the world. McGee thinks: "There is...almost no useful thing the human animal will not in his eternal perversity misuse, whether it be alcohol, gasoline, gunpowder, aspirin, chocolate fudge, mescaline, or LSD." Perhaps. And at one point, the author steps in and talks about the best places to surf around the world. Odd. This isn't a page-turner.
PLOT - 4: A man has died with $600,000, but the money has disappeared. It's been slowly moved by the owner out of various accounts over a period of a few years. Why? The money is somewhere, certainly. A good plot made more interesting by a good...
CAST - 4: Glory Doyle is a mess. At 22, she had married Karl, a man "not capable of love". Karl kills himself and their two children. She takes off for Fort Lauderdale and as a dining room hostess meets Dr. Fortner Geis. Glory reaches 29, Geis is a famous neurosurgeon but dies, leaving a mess of a household. There is his children, Roger and Heidi, sure that Glory is only a gold-digger. Anna Ottlo is a housekeeper who might know too much. Anna's daughter, Gretchen hangs around, what does she know. Janice Stanyard is a stand-out as Geis's OR Nurse. McGee at one point thinks, "The man who knows that his preferences are solidly heterosexual has no need to go about thumping everybody who lisps." True to a point, but not all gay folks lisp, so MacDonald/McGee are at least warming up for the future. But here in this book, MacDonald writes of a rich family with problems and secrets, and this is the MacDonald novel that seems most like Ross McDonald to me, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
ATMOSPHERE - 4: As I say in my previous review (below), Chicago is cold and dark. But it's perfectly presented here.
SUMMARY - 3.4: I enjoyed this book much more the second time around. I think it's because I've become a big fan of Ross McDonald (who focuses on messed-up rich families), and often this novel felt like a good Ross novel.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
McGee travels to Chicago and there it's cold and it's dark, much too dark for me, in more ways than one. (I lived in Chicago one winter, that's all I could take, and was never so happy to see a city in the rear view mirror of my car as it was just so painfully cold, but I do hear the city is great in the summer months.) This is the darkest (to me) of McGee's adventures so far, and the plot consists of a mess of relatives whose connections were, well, just too messy for much contemplation. I prefer MacDonald/McGee to be more on the warm (literally and figuratively) side and thi one hurt, the bad guy is truly horrific. I prefer mystery/crime novels on the Christie/Cozy side and this one is way, way, way on the other side of the tracks. If you're like me, and you do like McGee in the hot Florida sun, you might want to skip this one. Two stars, only because of so much contemporary trash.
1966 - This is my second read as I'm reading MacDonald's first 12 McGee books over before finishing them up. Why? Because either they seem over-rated, or I'm missing something.
HOOK - 3 stars: McGee is about to descend 'into that guck' of Chicago's O'Hare airport. "What am I doing here," he thinks. An old friend, Glory Doyle, has called for help. A damsel in distress, perfect for McGee.
PACE - 2 stars: Lots of ruminations about the past, or about the present conditions of the world. McGee thinks: "There is...almost no useful thing the human animal will not in his eternal perversity misuse, whether it be alcohol, gasoline, gunpowder, aspirin, chocolate fudge, mescaline, or LSD." Perhaps. And at one point, the author steps in and talks about the best places to surf around the world. Odd. This isn't a page-turner.
PLOT - 4: A man has died with $600,000, but the money has disappeared. It's been slowly moved by the owner out of various accounts over a period of a few years. Why? The money is somewhere, certainly. A good plot made more interesting by a good...
CAST - 4: Glory Doyle is a mess. At 22, she had married Karl, a man "not capable of love". Karl kills himself and their two children. She takes off for Fort Lauderdale and as a dining room hostess meets Dr. Fortner Geis. Glory reaches 29, Geis is a famous neurosurgeon but dies, leaving a mess of a household. There is his children, Roger and Heidi, sure that Glory is only a gold-digger. Anna Ottlo is a housekeeper who might know too much. Anna's daughter, Gretchen hangs around, what does she know. Janice Stanyard is a stand-out as Geis's OR Nurse. McGee at one point thinks, "The man who knows that his preferences are solidly heterosexual has no need to go about thumping everybody who lisps." True to a point, but not all gay folks lisp, so MacDonald/McGee are at least warming up for the future. But here in this book, MacDonald writes of a rich family with problems and secrets, and this is the MacDonald novel that seems most like Ross McDonald to me, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
ATMOSPHERE - 4: As I say in my previous review (below), Chicago is cold and dark. But it's perfectly presented here.
SUMMARY - 3.4: I enjoyed this book much more the second time around. I think it's because I've become a big fan of Ross McDonald (who focuses on messed-up rich families), and often this novel felt like a good Ross novel.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
McGee travels to Chicago and there it's cold and it's dark, much too dark for me, in more ways than one. (I lived in Chicago one winter, that's all I could take, and was never so happy to see a city in the rear view mirror of my car as it was just so painfully cold, but I do hear the city is great in the summer months.) This is the darkest (to me) of McGee's adventures so far, and the plot consists of a mess of relatives whose connections were, well, just too messy for much contemplation. I prefer MacDonald/McGee to be more on the warm (literally and figuratively) side and thi one hurt, the bad guy is truly horrific. I prefer mystery/crime novels on the Christie/Cozy side and this one is way, way, way on the other side of the tracks. If you're like me, and you do like McGee in the hot Florida sun, you might want to skip this one. Two stars, only because of so much contemporary trash.
August 25, 2018
The eighth novel in the Travis McGee series finds Travis far from his sunny home aboard The Busted Flush in southern Florida. In fact, the story starts with Travis descending into Chicago O’Hare Airport in wintertime, responding to a distress phone call from Glory Geiss, an old flame who has recently become a widow. Seems her rich doctor husband had been dispersing his fortune over the past several months to the point where most of it is now gone. Dr. Geiss’s son and daughter are convinced Glory has absconded with it so Glory would like Travis to track down what happened and clear her name.
This was another enjoyable entry in the series. McGee’s best friend Meyer, unfortunately, doesn’t have a real role in this one, but does put in an off-screen cameo. Travis, indeed, is on his own…and not at all in his element. Nevertheless, he doggedly pursues the mission, makes some creative paths to solutions and…in true McGee fashion, makes a couple of critical mistakes, imperiling not only himself but others. I like that about these novels. Our hero is not perfect, even when he is in top form.
As always, looking forward to the next one.
This was another enjoyable entry in the series. McGee’s best friend Meyer, unfortunately, doesn’t have a real role in this one, but does put in an off-screen cameo. Travis, indeed, is on his own…and not at all in his element. Nevertheless, he doggedly pursues the mission, makes some creative paths to solutions and…in true McGee fashion, makes a couple of critical mistakes, imperiling not only himself but others. I like that about these novels. Our hero is not perfect, even when he is in top form.
As always, looking forward to the next one.
April 22, 2018
One of the best reads. Loved it.A great adventure with Trav !!
July 10, 2008
Meh. A fine book, but not spectacular. Trav goes to Chicago to help a friend whose rich, older husband died and apparently had been blackmailed out of all funds. Nefariousness and intrigue occur with lots of beautiful social commentary that always feels current despite being written over 40 years ago.
I miss the biting banter when Trav is working with/for women who are friends. Because he likes these women, they are usually implausibly perfect and bland. Give me a flawed, self-absorbed, psycho bitch any day over the giving, elegant career woman. Snooze.
Fav quotes:
- "Every day, not matter how much you fight it, you learn a little more about yourself, and all most of it does is teach humility."
- "So in the endless twilight of noonday I went northward, locked into the traffic flow, listening to ghastly news from all over. Premier assassinated tax boost seen Wings lose again bombs deemed defective three coeds raped teenage riot in Galveston cost of living index up again market sags Senator sues bowl game canceled wife trading ring broken mobster takes Fifth bad weather blankets nation...
The announcer was beginning to choke up. I turned him off. I couldn't stand it."
- "Snow was bounding like wedding rice off the pavements. It stung my tropical nose, and the wind yanked at my topcoat, congealed my blood, and made my bones feel like old icicles wrapped in freezer bags. Santas dingle-jangled their street-corner appeals, hopping from foot to foot, changing the bell from hand to hand, saying than you sir with a huff of frosty breath, and the department stores sang "Ave Maria" in stereo high-fidelity while stocky ladies whomped each other with purses and elbows as they competed for Bargain Gifts Galore, and the stone-face virgins who staff the toy areas drove away the urchins who had come to play with the trains."
I miss the biting banter when Trav is working with/for women who are friends. Because he likes these women, they are usually implausibly perfect and bland. Give me a flawed, self-absorbed, psycho bitch any day over the giving, elegant career woman. Snooze.
Fav quotes:
- "Every day, not matter how much you fight it, you learn a little more about yourself, and all most of it does is teach humility."
- "So in the endless twilight of noonday I went northward, locked into the traffic flow, listening to ghastly news from all over. Premier assassinated tax boost seen Wings lose again bombs deemed defective three coeds raped teenage riot in Galveston cost of living index up again market sags Senator sues bowl game canceled wife trading ring broken mobster takes Fifth bad weather blankets nation...
The announcer was beginning to choke up. I turned him off. I couldn't stand it."
- "Snow was bounding like wedding rice off the pavements. It stung my tropical nose, and the wind yanked at my topcoat, congealed my blood, and made my bones feel like old icicles wrapped in freezer bags. Santas dingle-jangled their street-corner appeals, hopping from foot to foot, changing the bell from hand to hand, saying than you sir with a huff of frosty breath, and the department stores sang "Ave Maria" in stereo high-fidelity while stocky ladies whomped each other with purses and elbows as they competed for Bargain Gifts Galore, and the stone-face virgins who staff the toy areas drove away the urchins who had come to play with the trains."
September 11, 2018
I’m sorry, ONE FEARFUL YELLOW EYE, I think a lot of this is me rather than you. Yes, I know I raced through you quite quickly and you might have got the impression than I was entranced by you, but really, I was just trying to get to the end.
The more I consider it, I may just have issues with the whole sub-genre of Florida crime fiction. I can remember once trying to read to Elmore Leonard’s RUM PUNCH and getting nowhere, the work of Carl Hiaasen has always left me cold, and I can’t say I’m blown away by the granddaddy of this genre, John D. MacDonald himself. Yes, I obviously liked it enough that this is the second Travis McGee novel I’ve read, but I’m far from convinced that there’ll be a third for me.
There’s something languid to the prose of these Florida books which doesn’t charm me. Instead, it irritates me. I find the tension diffuses and rather than being gripped, each book just drifts along.
And that’s before I got to various passages in this one about homosexuality and race which left a really bad taste in my mouth. That’s before I took a step back and pondered its problems with women (of course Travis McGee is a man manly enough he can cure a woman’s frigidity). The argument always wheeled out when readers come across difficult things like this is that times change and attitudes change. But there’s some stuff here that would surely have raised eyebrows in 1966.
Okay, ONE FEARFUL YELLOW EYE, you’re far from blameless in this break up. It just has to be said.
Stripped back to basics, the plot is fine and I like the mechanics of it all (even if the ending does turn out to be a big old deus ex machina) but there are real problems with this novel that go beyond the fact that the style of this entire genre just doesn’t work for me.
The more I consider it, I may just have issues with the whole sub-genre of Florida crime fiction. I can remember once trying to read to Elmore Leonard’s RUM PUNCH and getting nowhere, the work of Carl Hiaasen has always left me cold, and I can’t say I’m blown away by the granddaddy of this genre, John D. MacDonald himself. Yes, I obviously liked it enough that this is the second Travis McGee novel I’ve read, but I’m far from convinced that there’ll be a third for me.
There’s something languid to the prose of these Florida books which doesn’t charm me. Instead, it irritates me. I find the tension diffuses and rather than being gripped, each book just drifts along.
And that’s before I got to various passages in this one about homosexuality and race which left a really bad taste in my mouth. That’s before I took a step back and pondered its problems with women (of course Travis McGee is a man manly enough he can cure a woman’s frigidity). The argument always wheeled out when readers come across difficult things like this is that times change and attitudes change. But there’s some stuff here that would surely have raised eyebrows in 1966.
Okay, ONE FEARFUL YELLOW EYE, you’re far from blameless in this break up. It just has to be said.
Stripped back to basics, the plot is fine and I like the mechanics of it all (even if the ending does turn out to be a big old deus ex machina) but there are real problems with this novel that go beyond the fact that the style of this entire genre just doesn’t work for me.
August 23, 2016
Occasionally, I join with Travis McGee on one of his adventures, eight times in the last ten years. I always look forward to Travis's easy banter, his well crafted descriptions of situations and scenery, and his ability to solve whatever mysteries lie before him. John D. MacDonald writes better than most in this genre so a Travis McGee novel is often light reading spun into a comfortable, recognizable formula that typically makes for good fun.
With my expectations high for so many reasons, One Fearful Yellow Eye disappointed on multiple levels. There are too many characters entwined in overly complicated and unnecessary backstories. Most of the novel takes place in Chicago, a long way from Travis's familiar home on The Busted Flush. Throw in a housekeeper with a laughable German accent, an accent that later disappears altogether. Then add some scenes that employ disgusting, sadistic torture. And finally, include Travis's rescue from certain death through an absurd, last-minute twist.
So One Fearful Yellow Eye offers an absence of the familiar Florida milieu, plenty of unpleasantness, plus an overdose of absurdity. Add to that MacDonald's usual demeaning attitude toward women, which here seems even more debased than usual. It all makes for an unenjoyable read. Yes, the mystery here is intriguing, but otherwise, One Fearful Yellow Eye fails on almost every dimension. I'm disappointed enough that I won't be joining Travis in the future; the series ends for me here.
With my expectations high for so many reasons, One Fearful Yellow Eye disappointed on multiple levels. There are too many characters entwined in overly complicated and unnecessary backstories. Most of the novel takes place in Chicago, a long way from Travis's familiar home on The Busted Flush. Throw in a housekeeper with a laughable German accent, an accent that later disappears altogether. Then add some scenes that employ disgusting, sadistic torture. And finally, include Travis's rescue from certain death through an absurd, last-minute twist.
So One Fearful Yellow Eye offers an absence of the familiar Florida milieu, plenty of unpleasantness, plus an overdose of absurdity. Add to that MacDonald's usual demeaning attitude toward women, which here seems even more debased than usual. It all makes for an unenjoyable read. Yes, the mystery here is intriguing, but otherwise, One Fearful Yellow Eye fails on almost every dimension. I'm disappointed enough that I won't be joining Travis in the future; the series ends for me here.
November 23, 2012
At the moment, due to Amanda’s excellently written complete trashing of Travis McGee in her ★ review of MacDonald’s DARKER THAN AMBER (she may have even called it Book Rape, I forget), a cautionary note to potential female readers may be appropriate.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
ONE FEARFUL YELLOW EYE is Copyright 1966. Travis McGee’s views on women are anchored in the Sixties. Travis easily makes my Top Ten List of favorite literary characters, but savvy 2012 women are going to have “issues.” So, please Ladies, if you really want to pretend to be a hulking macho 6’ 4” male animal for a few hours, may I suggest a nice Spenser by Robert B. Parker? Just not the first one. In THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT Spenser commits the penultimate PC boo-boo by having sex with both his client and his client’s mother. Go for one of the later novels where Spenser is dating the shrink, and can put a politically correct spin on everything he is thinking and doing.
Also, in ONE FEARFUL YELLOW EYE the scene where Travis stumbles upon a dead guy who had been tortured for information so freaked me out that this may be the only one of the twenty-one Travis McGee novels that I have only read once. So far. Cut me some slack; Travis was also freaked out.
Some elegant plotting in this puppy near the end when it’s clear that the good gals and guys have won, things abruptly tumble into hopeless disaster.
Book Reviews are almost obsolete in the post-Wikipedia era when copious details about any book can be accessed by anyone with just a couple of effortless mouse clicks. I don’t know what to spill and what to hold back. In this one, McGee is again doing a favor for a friend. Although, there is a bit of loot to be recovered, if Travis can compose himself enough to stop looking at and thinking about that fearful yellow eye. @hg47
January 23, 2021
This book has problems. Yet, MacDonald’s voice is so distinct, fast, and colorful that most of the book is still mostly compelling until you stop reading and start reflecting on it.
August 17, 2008
When I was thinking about tackling the Travis McGee series, I consulted my mom on this. She was a major mystery reader. (MMR) To qualify for this designation start with all of Agatha Christie (88 books) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (4 novels 200+ stories).
She was woman of few words and her respond was pursed lips and a few knowing nods. This expression had only been observed for Les Miserables and Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" (best opera of all time).
So, Travis McGee is was. I have to say I have enjoyed them all, except this one. It had an implausible plot about Nazis in Chicago blackmailing Fortner Geis who slept with a 17 year-old girl and produced a love child. The book had torture, LSD, rampant philosophizing and Nazis in a Florida condo.
It was bad.
She was woman of few words and her respond was pursed lips and a few knowing nods. This expression had only been observed for Les Miserables and Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" (best opera of all time).
So, Travis McGee is was. I have to say I have enjoyed them all, except this one. It had an implausible plot about Nazis in Chicago blackmailing Fortner Geis who slept with a 17 year-old girl and produced a love child. The book had torture, LSD, rampant philosophizing and Nazis in a Florida condo.
It was bad.
August 7, 2018
Copyrighted 1966, very dated style, not as good as Lawrence Block. Dumb story line. I thought I would never finish this book. Bless his heart, I remembered John MacDonald as being better than this.
January 30, 2011
MacDonald always delivers great characters and good plots plus language always seems real with overtones about life in modern times
March 1, 2020
Published in 1966, One Fearful Yellow Eye is the eighth book in John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series. This one takes place mostly in Chicago, where McGee has travelled to help an old friend. Gloria “Glory” Doyle was one those “broken birds” McGee had taken in and for a period of healing after her life had gone wrong. Her happily-ever-after came in the form of marriage to the good and caring Dr. Fortner Geis.
This story opens with a call from Glory. It seems someone had been extorting the late Dr. Geis in the final year of his life, draining his savings bit by bit until there was nothing left of the substantial estate his family had expected him to pass on. Dr. Geis’ children from his first marriage, Heidi and Roger, despise Glory for marrying their father, an older widower, just three years before his death. They see her as the gold digger who stole all their money, and she wants to clear her name.
So McGee flies to Chicago in December to help his old friend, and to get a crack at some of the $600,000 she’s trying to recover. As with the other McGee novels, many of the most interesting parts of the book come from the protagonist’s observations of the world around him.
“Statistically,” McGee says of Chicago, “it is probably the one city in the world where the most people have been killed in arguments over professional athletes.”
Standing on the windy shore of Lake Michigan in the December gloom, he observes:
This book has the usual McGee ingredients: a woman (or two) in distress, at least one of whom is a love interest, plenty of mystery, plenty of suspects, and a healthy dose of violence and suspense.
This one delves into family secrets, like a Ross MacDonald novel, to uncover how the contemporary crime under investigation has its roots deep in the past. And like a Ross MacDonald novel, it includes at least one major twist after you think you have it all figured out. I won’t give away any spoilers, but I do recommend the book for the richness of MacDonald’s prose and his expert storytelling.
This book is also interesting as a bit of archeology, portraying a past that is, on the one hand, outdated and gone, and on the other, a vivid prototype of the world we’re living in now.
Among the “outdated and gone” is the book’s portrayal of acceptable gender relations. All young women are sex objects in McGee’s world, and neither the men nor the women make any bones about it. The mid-sixties was the height of the sexual revolution brought about by the pill, when women were, perhaps for the first time in American history, as free as men to sleep with whomever they pleased. General attitudes toward sex were pretty open. People wanted to explore, and they did.
Still, I wonder sometimes about McGee’s constant sexualization of women. Was it the norm then? The acceptable norm? Or was McGee simply the flip-side of the female fantasy portrayed in romance novels, where the men are the objects of desire and are viewed by the women first and foremost as potential mates?
All fiction is fantasy to some extent, and in fiction intended as entertainment, the protagonist is usually a projection of who the reader wants to be. I know plenty of guys whose fantasy life would look just like Travis McGee’s. Live on a boat, drink beer all day, work when you feel like it, beat up bad guys, be the hero, and have women everywhere express their gratitude and admiration in bed. That beats the hell out of nine-to-five.
Among McGee’s “prototype” observations are his notes on the physical state of mid-sixties America. This is his description of the city on his arrival:
McGee and his author show a deep understanding of human psychology, as well an empathy and compassion for crime’s victims that is often either missing or shallowly portrayed in contemporary thrillers. If you’re looking for a well-written mystery with depth and interesting characters, this is it.
This story opens with a call from Glory. It seems someone had been extorting the late Dr. Geis in the final year of his life, draining his savings bit by bit until there was nothing left of the substantial estate his family had expected him to pass on. Dr. Geis’ children from his first marriage, Heidi and Roger, despise Glory for marrying their father, an older widower, just three years before his death. They see her as the gold digger who stole all their money, and she wants to clear her name.
So McGee flies to Chicago in December to help his old friend, and to get a crack at some of the $600,000 she’s trying to recover. As with the other McGee novels, many of the most interesting parts of the book come from the protagonist’s observations of the world around him.
“Statistically,” McGee says of Chicago, “it is probably the one city in the world where the most people have been killed in arguments over professional athletes.”
Standing on the windy shore of Lake Michigan in the December gloom, he observes:
There was no color in the world. Grey sand, gray water, grey beach, grey sky. I was trapped in one of those arty salon photographs of nature in the raw, the kind retired colonels enter in photography contests.
This book has the usual McGee ingredients: a woman (or two) in distress, at least one of whom is a love interest, plenty of mystery, plenty of suspects, and a healthy dose of violence and suspense.
This one delves into family secrets, like a Ross MacDonald novel, to uncover how the contemporary crime under investigation has its roots deep in the past. And like a Ross MacDonald novel, it includes at least one major twist after you think you have it all figured out. I won’t give away any spoilers, but I do recommend the book for the richness of MacDonald’s prose and his expert storytelling.
This book is also interesting as a bit of archeology, portraying a past that is, on the one hand, outdated and gone, and on the other, a vivid prototype of the world we’re living in now.
Among the “outdated and gone” is the book’s portrayal of acceptable gender relations. All young women are sex objects in McGee’s world, and neither the men nor the women make any bones about it. The mid-sixties was the height of the sexual revolution brought about by the pill, when women were, perhaps for the first time in American history, as free as men to sleep with whomever they pleased. General attitudes toward sex were pretty open. People wanted to explore, and they did.
Still, I wonder sometimes about McGee’s constant sexualization of women. Was it the norm then? The acceptable norm? Or was McGee simply the flip-side of the female fantasy portrayed in romance novels, where the men are the objects of desire and are viewed by the women first and foremost as potential mates?
All fiction is fantasy to some extent, and in fiction intended as entertainment, the protagonist is usually a projection of who the reader wants to be. I know plenty of guys whose fantasy life would look just like Travis McGee’s. Live on a boat, drink beer all day, work when you feel like it, beat up bad guys, be the hero, and have women everywhere express their gratitude and admiration in bed. That beats the hell out of nine-to-five.
Among McGee’s “prototype” observations are his notes on the physical state of mid-sixties America. This is his description of the city on his arrival:
I could smell a sourness in the wind. I remembered that it blew across a dying lake. For a hundred years the cities had dumped their wastes and corruptions and acids into it, and now suddenly everyone was aghast that it should have the impertinence to start dying like Lake Erie. The ecology was broken, the renewing forces at last overwhelmed. Now the politicians were making the brave sounds the worried people wanted to hear.
Now they were taking half-measures. Scientists said that only with total effort might the process be slowed, halted, reversed. But total effort, of course, would raise havoc with the supposedly God-given right of the thousand lakeshore corporations to keep costs down by running their poisons into the lake.
McGee and his author show a deep understanding of human psychology, as well an empathy and compassion for crime’s victims that is often either missing or shallowly portrayed in contemporary thrillers. If you’re looking for a well-written mystery with depth and interesting characters, this is it.
September 25, 2017
This one was a little tedious for the first two-thirds of the novel. In terms of formula, author MacDonald makes a big deviation in setting, as much of the story takes place outside McGee’s Florida habitat and places him on the streets of Chicago, a few northern suburbs, and the desolate rural towns west of the city, in the onset of winter. McGee is asked for help by an old friend (yet another ‘lost lamb’ of a woman he saved from despair and death several years prior). After her fling with McGee, Glory Doyle married a rich brain surgeon who succumbed to cancer and died tragically. Shortly before his death, he secretly liquidated his assets, and dumped the cash in unknown accounts and locations. Blackmail is the obvious reason, and MacDonald/McGee spends a great deal of time inquiring many possible suspects and motives. The story builds to a satisfying conclusion, but it takes a while to get there.
The story was of interest to me, since I’m very familiar with the setting. What would MacDonald, in all his typical cynicism and disdain for modern life, have to say about the Windy City? Not surprisingly, MacDonald is quite critical, commenting on the “nine bridges crossing the central sewer,” slums south and west that ‘make Harlem look like Scarsdale’, etc. Plenty of jibes on the weather, air quality, and lack of culture etc.
As always, remind yourself that this was written in 1966 for a male audience, and as such is typically misogynistic. There is also some unsavory sexual content here that is intended to titillate the target audience. Deep down though, McGee has a heart, and MacDonald makes him vulnerable. For the first time in the series, we see McGee questioning his skills and instincts, and twice he's sandbagged from behind. At his core, he’s just a salvage expert, not an invincible secret agent or private eye.
Despite the tedium as McGee unravels the mystery, there is always the author’s imitable writing style, which set this series part in the genre. Some wry humor, philosophizing and a few curve balls thrown in for fun. There’s a plot point that seems to come out of left field at the end, but I should have seen in coming. (I’m no spoiler, but hopefully that piques your interest). But overall, after reading the previous seven, this one was a bit of a misfire.
The story was of interest to me, since I’m very familiar with the setting. What would MacDonald, in all his typical cynicism and disdain for modern life, have to say about the Windy City? Not surprisingly, MacDonald is quite critical, commenting on the “nine bridges crossing the central sewer,” slums south and west that ‘make Harlem look like Scarsdale’, etc. Plenty of jibes on the weather, air quality, and lack of culture etc.
As always, remind yourself that this was written in 1966 for a male audience, and as such is typically misogynistic. There is also some unsavory sexual content here that is intended to titillate the target audience. Deep down though, McGee has a heart, and MacDonald makes him vulnerable. For the first time in the series, we see McGee questioning his skills and instincts, and twice he's sandbagged from behind. At his core, he’s just a salvage expert, not an invincible secret agent or private eye.
Despite the tedium as McGee unravels the mystery, there is always the author’s imitable writing style, which set this series part in the genre. Some wry humor, philosophizing and a few curve balls thrown in for fun. There’s a plot point that seems to come out of left field at the end, but I should have seen in coming. (I’m no spoiler, but hopefully that piques your interest). But overall, after reading the previous seven, this one was a bit of a misfire.
January 4, 2021
If you love a loquacious narrator, one who loves to wax philosophical about human nature, especially human folly, one who never misses an opportunity to offer a tangent of observation or thought (especially about whether to sex or not to sex), Travis McGee is for you, as is One Fearful Yellow Eye! Travis McGee is one interesting package: beach bum, anachronism, amateur sex therapist, amateur philosopher, automotive restoration hobbyist, art connoisseur, food connoisseur, and off-the-books salvage professional. It is McGee's voice that makes this series of books.
This particular story is exciting and moves along well, but the nature of McGee requires detours and soliloquies which take the pace down a notch at times. Also when the evil caper behind all the problems is revealed, it is a doozy--maybe just a little too bonkers for plausibility, but by that point the peril and resolution has carried you to an endpoint. Just don't sit there and think about it too much after the last couple pages.
It is all worth it for the prose which sings like poetry at times. Someone could use this book do a PhD on sentence length variation. Definitely one of the most poetic and rhetorically vigorous works of fiction I've ever read.
This particular story is exciting and moves along well, but the nature of McGee requires detours and soliloquies which take the pace down a notch at times. Also when the evil caper behind all the problems is revealed, it is a doozy--maybe just a little too bonkers for plausibility, but by that point the peril and resolution has carried you to an endpoint. Just don't sit there and think about it too much after the last couple pages.
It is all worth it for the prose which sings like poetry at times. Someone could use this book do a PhD on sentence length variation. Definitely one of the most poetic and rhetorically vigorous works of fiction I've ever read.
November 15, 2017
I had almost forgotten the real embodiment of masculinity, Travis McGee. Knight not in shining armor but beach bum attire, McGee is not really a detective but helps people in need if he feels right about the job. I say masculine because there have been two films I know of, the one in the 80s starred Sam Elliot and one made even earlier had Rod Taylor. Neither captured McGee's essence. This one is a highly complex story with a lot of threads that McGee eventually ties together. John D. MacDonald has written many other books other than the McGee series including his most famous which was made into a film twice. Anyone remember Cape Fear? Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum in the oldest black and white version and Nick Nolte and Robert DeNiro in the newer version. I like both films. Both Peck and Mitchum were old but still kicking when the last film was made and it was cool to have them both show up in cameos. The name of the actual book the films are based on is The Executioners. John D. MacDonald is obviously strongly opinionated on many topics. So were both Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald yet they seem to have had the technique of a more subtle way with similies and beautiful metaphorical styling whereas John D. many times seems to preach to the reader. Nevertheless, an entertaining novel which is also fascinating in the way characters, especially women, are portrayed reminding the reader of how our attitudes and mores have changed over the years.
May 5, 2024
From Florida to Chicago, the eighth in the Travis McGee series, is another great entertaining story that provides great escapism.
ONE FEARFUL YELLOW EYE is a family drama revolving around the missing estate when the father / husband dies, with some great characters thrown in, and plenty plots to keep the narrative ticking til the end.
Really enjoyed this one - and with all the McGee novels, it is always a bit of a walk down memory lane - revisiting attitudes and moments of the Past.
In this one, McGee reflects on the environment at one point, and he expresses his disapproval of automated washroom hand dryers which have started appearing int he USA!
Another good and entertaining read!
ONE FEARFUL YELLOW EYE is a family drama revolving around the missing estate when the father / husband dies, with some great characters thrown in, and plenty plots to keep the narrative ticking til the end.
Really enjoyed this one - and with all the McGee novels, it is always a bit of a walk down memory lane - revisiting attitudes and moments of the Past.
In this one, McGee reflects on the environment at one point, and he expresses his disapproval of automated washroom hand dryers which have started appearing int he USA!
Another good and entertaining read!
February 9, 2022
I guess I'm getting tired of these. I still like the Travis McGee character a lot, though he's at his best in warm tropical climes and this one takes place in Chicago. In this one he pushes his egoism about his deep knowledge of all that is woman a bit too far. And the writing in this one is overwrought. Everything gets analyzed to the nth degree; it's tiring.
The mystery is OK and the unravelling of it interesting, but the pace lagged a bit in the middle and the ending was forced. All in all not one of MacDonald's better efforts. I'm going to put the rest of these on hold for awhile a look for a new series I'll like a lot more. Another Bosch, maybe.
The mystery is OK and the unravelling of it interesting, but the pace lagged a bit in the middle and the ending was forced. All in all not one of MacDonald's better efforts. I'm going to put the rest of these on hold for awhile a look for a new series I'll like a lot more. Another Bosch, maybe.
May 25, 2022
"Every day, no matter how you fight it, you learn a little more about yourself, and all most of it does is teach humility."
Un libro interesante y dinámico que te mantiene entretenido. Un poco a la búsqueda del tesoro perdido. Lleno de personajes de lo más dispares. Y que finaliza de la forma más inesperada posible.
Un libro interesante y dinámico que te mantiene entretenido. Un poco a la búsqueda del tesoro perdido. Lleno de personajes de lo más dispares. Y que finaliza de la forma más inesperada posible.
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