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You Live Once
...and somebody thought that was one time too many for a woman with a haunting suspicion-and no scruples at all
160 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
64 people are currently reading
189 people want to read
About the author
John D. MacDonald
574 books1,383 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 - 25 of 25 reviews
December 26, 2022
You Live Once (also published as You Kill Me) begins with a classic crime fiction motif of the protagonist, Clint Sewell, waking up to find a beautiful corpse in his closet. All the evidence points to his guilt so much so that Sewell does the logical thing and compounds the evidence of his consciousness of guilt by disposing of the corpse. MacDonald does a couple of things that stand out here. First, he gives Sewell a great narrative voice and makes his entire line of reasoning and body disposal (which ought to be left to professionals) almost humorous. Second, he complicates the matter by making the dead society Girl the mistress of Sewell’s corporate boss and Sewell’s dating her a cover up for the real affair. Moreover, Sewell is bewitched by Mary and wants to really date her. Sewell himself is a bit of a lecher and makes passes at his secretary and spends his mornings staring at her blouse. Third, there’s a bit of corporate intrigue here with Sewell’s boss Dodd being a backstabbing son of a bitch. Mary confides at one point to Sewell that if he were more of a son of a bitch she might go for him. It’s a fast-moving plot with not a great many characters or backstories. Much of it about Sewell trying to clear his name and unmasking the real killer.
September 26, 2018
This was standard MacDonald fare—meaning good. The mystery that is introduced in the first pages of the book is intriguing, even if its explanation isn’t entirely satisfying. As I sometimes do with reviews of John D. MacDonald books, I’ll include one of my favorite passages:
“…I went to the Warren Public Library. It was the same vintage as the police station. The young lady who came to my assistance wore a white angora sweater that struggled to contain two of the most enormously unreal breasts I have ever seen. She marched trimly behind them, using them as weapons of offense. I wondered how anybody remembered what question they came to ask. They had a life of their own—mammalian, incredible—objects far beyond the realm of desire, creating only awe and consternation.”
Now, this aside has nothing to do with the story. The young lady in the white angora sweater is only mentioned one other time—when the narrator is leaving the library, he checks to see if she’s still at the desk.
I have a theory on why MacDonald introduced us to this woman, whose entire identity is in her bra: Bored with just cranking out one great story after the next, MacDonald would attend writing classes at the local community college anonymously. One day, the writing teacher said, “Okay, write a paragraph about something remarkable that happened to you today.”
…And that’s how MacDonald’s random encounter with some well-endowed gal down there in Siesta Key made it into You Live Once.
“…I went to the Warren Public Library. It was the same vintage as the police station. The young lady who came to my assistance wore a white angora sweater that struggled to contain two of the most enormously unreal breasts I have ever seen. She marched trimly behind them, using them as weapons of offense. I wondered how anybody remembered what question they came to ask. They had a life of their own—mammalian, incredible—objects far beyond the realm of desire, creating only awe and consternation.”
Now, this aside has nothing to do with the story. The young lady in the white angora sweater is only mentioned one other time—when the narrator is leaving the library, he checks to see if she’s still at the desk.
I have a theory on why MacDonald introduced us to this woman, whose entire identity is in her bra: Bored with just cranking out one great story after the next, MacDonald would attend writing classes at the local community college anonymously. One day, the writing teacher said, “Okay, write a paragraph about something remarkable that happened to you today.”
…And that’s how MacDonald’s random encounter with some well-endowed gal down there in Siesta Key made it into You Live Once.
November 24, 2020
This is an excellent example on how to hook a reader into your novel. You have a normal guy, Clint Sewell, awakened with a hangover by a pair of cops banging on his door. The cops want to know if Clint has any idea where his girlfriend Mary Olan might be, since she didn't return home from her date with Clint the evening before. Her aunt is worried about her. Clint cooperates, even let's the cops even take a cursory look around his apartment. In fact, he has plans to meet Mary Olan at the lake for a family picnic later that afternoon. But, everyone in town knows Mary is something of a "free spirit" and is answerable to no one on where she goes and who she goes with. She'll show up when she feels like it. The cops thank Clint and leave. Clint then goes to the kitchen to cure his wicked hangover, shaves, goes to get dressed and finds Mary's body stuffed into the back of his closet with one of his belts around her neck. As the book progresses we learn that Clint's relationship with Mary is a sham. We also learn that Mary has made a few enemies in town. And that she has left secret and not so secret lovers in her wake.
Okay, it's a standard noir trope for the "hero" to wake up from a hangover to find a dead body in their room. But it's done well here. MacDonald has an easy writing style that doesn't overwhelm his plots. That said, there are also the typical dated attitudes that one will find in many of MacDonald's books. So, taking that into account, this is a quick and enjoyable standalone from the mid-50's.
Okay, it's a standard noir trope for the "hero" to wake up from a hangover to find a dead body in their room. But it's done well here. MacDonald has an easy writing style that doesn't overwhelm his plots. That said, there are also the typical dated attitudes that one will find in many of MacDonald's books. So, taking that into account, this is a quick and enjoyable standalone from the mid-50's.
May 6, 2025
I Wasn't Expecting a Whodunnit
This one was a little hard to take. I suppose if I'd have read some other reviews, someone woulda warned me, but I'm way too stubborn to take anyone's advice anyway.
It starts off with the hero doing something so incredibly stupid that it's not, well, credible. One of my rules is that I have to be convinced, it has to seem real to me. This guy's dumbass move was not, could not, seem real to me.
Then, by about the half-way point the hero is in some horribly hot water, but he falls in love. He falls in love in that way they can't even do in stupid movies or on TV. It takes prose to torment a man like this; you could never say this stuff out loud, no one would sit still for it, he'd walk away. To damage your reader this much it takes paragraphs and pages of describing stars before his eyes, birds and bees buzzing in his head, and dry-mouthed palsies that make him fall flat on his face and somersault stark-naked down Main Street. To give this much pain it then has to be rehashed in half-a-dozen ways and in a style that would make you throw a paper book against the wall, then maybe even read some poetry or a play or even Science Fiction -- just to get you feeling like you've got both feet back on the ground. I don't mind telling you, I was mad as hell. I coulda wrapped JDM's carcass in a carpet, thrown it in the trunk of my sedan, and buried him. I was that mad.
But then the ending part came: with an arrest and a robust 3rd degree from some old-time cops in the old-time way. I really, really like reading about interrogations, it's one of my very favorite things and it's why this book got 5 stars. But it turned out it wasn't over yet, and the real culprit was still at large -- so what we've got is a whodunnit.
I don't think I'd ever actually read a whodunnit before. Sure, I've been hearing about them all my life, but just never stumbled across one. Over 50 years ago I read some Dashiell Hammetts, but I don't remember them as being whodunnits. I just remember that they bored me.
It seemed to me that the convolutions leading us to the who in whodunnit were as screwy as screwy can be. Probably it wouldn't seem that way to you veterans.
If this is a whodunnit, then I'm not sure the genre (can't believe I used that word, I'll be saying "character development" next) isn't just an easy gimmick. After all, what is a novel but a chance to say any old thing as long as it's believable? So tricking a greenhorn like me is easy. I trust novels to tell the truth. It's fiction, so why not be honest? I only expect lies when I read non-fiction.
This one was a little hard to take. I suppose if I'd have read some other reviews, someone woulda warned me, but I'm way too stubborn to take anyone's advice anyway.
It starts off with the hero doing something so incredibly stupid that it's not, well, credible. One of my rules is that I have to be convinced, it has to seem real to me. This guy's dumbass move was not, could not, seem real to me.
Then, by about the half-way point the hero is in some horribly hot water, but he falls in love. He falls in love in that way they can't even do in stupid movies or on TV. It takes prose to torment a man like this; you could never say this stuff out loud, no one would sit still for it, he'd walk away. To damage your reader this much it takes paragraphs and pages of describing stars before his eyes, birds and bees buzzing in his head, and dry-mouthed palsies that make him fall flat on his face and somersault stark-naked down Main Street. To give this much pain it then has to be rehashed in half-a-dozen ways and in a style that would make you throw a paper book against the wall, then maybe even read some poetry or a play or even Science Fiction -- just to get you feeling like you've got both feet back on the ground. I don't mind telling you, I was mad as hell. I coulda wrapped JDM's carcass in a carpet, thrown it in the trunk of my sedan, and buried him. I was that mad.
But then the ending part came: with an arrest and a robust 3rd degree from some old-time cops in the old-time way. I really, really like reading about interrogations, it's one of my very favorite things and it's why this book got 5 stars. But it turned out it wasn't over yet, and the real culprit was still at large -- so what we've got is a whodunnit.
I don't think I'd ever actually read a whodunnit before. Sure, I've been hearing about them all my life, but just never stumbled across one. Over 50 years ago I read some Dashiell Hammetts, but I don't remember them as being whodunnits. I just remember that they bored me.
It seemed to me that the convolutions leading us to the who in whodunnit were as screwy as screwy can be. Probably it wouldn't seem that way to you veterans.
If this is a whodunnit, then I'm not sure the genre (can't believe I used that word, I'll be saying "character development" next) isn't just an easy gimmick. After all, what is a novel but a chance to say any old thing as long as it's believable? So tricking a greenhorn like me is easy. I trust novels to tell the truth. It's fiction, so why not be honest? I only expect lies when I read non-fiction.
October 28, 2016
What a slam-bang little thriller this is! It starts off with factory executive Clint Sewell awakening from a deep sleep to discover that 1) he's got a big lump behind one ear; and 2) there's a dead woman in his closet, strangled with one of his belts. Rather than call the cops, Clint decides to move the body, and from that point on he's in the soup.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Florida author John D. MacDonald's birth, so my New Year's resolution was to read as many of his non-Travis McGee novels as I could this year. I'm glad I did, because they have broadened my appreciation of his work. Most of the ones I've read so far were set in Florida, where he lived from 1949 until his death, but this one is not. It's set in a small manufacturing town in the Midwest.
The manufacturing part plays a big role in the book, because Sewell starts the book as the Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, a company guy determined to devote everything he's got to rising in the organization. MacDonald, who may be the only pulp fiction writer who earned an MBA, does a great job of showing how Sewell fits in with all the other post-war industrial executives who get shuttled to a new location every few years by a faceless corporation determined to wear them down so they fit wherever they're placed. The murder, and its aftermath, change him, and suddenly he's got to be a man on his own.
Of interest to modern readers, too, will be Sewell's strong interest in sex, which is handled with a very '50s-going-into-'60s attitude. He's a single guy who's been dating a woman who's been promiscuous with other men, but not with him, and he's clearly got the hots for her, for his boss' wife and for his secretary. MacDonald's ability with language renders those emotions and urges very vivid indeed, and those things will all come into play as Sewell tries to cope with the hand he's been dealt.
I don't want to give away too much about this book, but not because the plot is all that. The mystery of who killed the woman in Sewell's closet isn't all that mysterious. If you're a longtime reader of thrillers you'll probably spot the murderer's identity the second time that person shows up in the story, the way I did. But following along with Sewell as he figures it out is still fun.
There's one major stumble in the book. Sewell's secretary gets called three different names in the text, and it threw me off trying to follow who he's talking about. I don't know if that happened because of a series of typos or if it was poor editing on the part of a publisher trying to rush a book into print, but it bothered me enough to dock a star off this review.
Nevertheless, I kept reading to the end, which only took my a couple of days to reach. The coda to the story -- harking back to the corporate subplot -- is just perfect.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Florida author John D. MacDonald's birth, so my New Year's resolution was to read as many of his non-Travis McGee novels as I could this year. I'm glad I did, because they have broadened my appreciation of his work. Most of the ones I've read so far were set in Florida, where he lived from 1949 until his death, but this one is not. It's set in a small manufacturing town in the Midwest.
The manufacturing part plays a big role in the book, because Sewell starts the book as the Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, a company guy determined to devote everything he's got to rising in the organization. MacDonald, who may be the only pulp fiction writer who earned an MBA, does a great job of showing how Sewell fits in with all the other post-war industrial executives who get shuttled to a new location every few years by a faceless corporation determined to wear them down so they fit wherever they're placed. The murder, and its aftermath, change him, and suddenly he's got to be a man on his own.
Of interest to modern readers, too, will be Sewell's strong interest in sex, which is handled with a very '50s-going-into-'60s attitude. He's a single guy who's been dating a woman who's been promiscuous with other men, but not with him, and he's clearly got the hots for her, for his boss' wife and for his secretary. MacDonald's ability with language renders those emotions and urges very vivid indeed, and those things will all come into play as Sewell tries to cope with the hand he's been dealt.
I don't want to give away too much about this book, but not because the plot is all that. The mystery of who killed the woman in Sewell's closet isn't all that mysterious. If you're a longtime reader of thrillers you'll probably spot the murderer's identity the second time that person shows up in the story, the way I did. But following along with Sewell as he figures it out is still fun.
There's one major stumble in the book. Sewell's secretary gets called three different names in the text, and it threw me off trying to follow who he's talking about. I don't know if that happened because of a series of typos or if it was poor editing on the part of a publisher trying to rush a book into print, but it bothered me enough to dock a star off this review.
Nevertheless, I kept reading to the end, which only took my a couple of days to reach. The coda to the story -- harking back to the corporate subplot -- is just perfect.
April 22, 2025
A pretty good thriller.
Clint Sewell is a company man who has been asked by his boss to go on double dates with said boss, the boss's wife, and Mary, the girl the boss has a crush on. Clint is a bit of a horndog and accepts, though Mary has told Clint that she just wants to be friends. The boss's wife knows her husband is cheating on her and confides in Clint. Clint feels bad for both women since neither are happy.
Then, after a night of partying, Mary shows up dead in Clint's closet.
Clint thinks someone is trying to frame him, so he hides the body on a distant hillside. Of course, after the body is found, the cops start to grill everyone and Clint ends up in hotter and hotter water.
I enjoyed it. Clint would likely have saved himself a heap of trouble if he'd only gone to the cops when he found Mary's body, but then there wouldn't have been a book.
Clint Sewell is a company man who has been asked by his boss to go on double dates with said boss, the boss's wife, and Mary, the girl the boss has a crush on. Clint is a bit of a horndog and accepts, though Mary has told Clint that she just wants to be friends. The boss's wife knows her husband is cheating on her and confides in Clint. Clint feels bad for both women since neither are happy.
Then, after a night of partying, Mary shows up dead in Clint's closet.
Clint thinks someone is trying to frame him, so he hides the body on a distant hillside. Of course, after the body is found, the cops start to grill everyone and Clint ends up in hotter and hotter water.
I enjoyed it. Clint would likely have saved himself a heap of trouble if he'd only gone to the cops when he found Mary's body, but then there wouldn't have been a book.
December 27, 2014
26 dec 14, friday afternoon, 12:56 p.m. e.s.t.
this is #14 from macdonald for me...128 page paperback with the title you kill me..."previously published as you live once"
copyright 1956 john d macdonald...original title: you live once
this edition, january, 1961, you kill me
story opens:
i have never awakened easily. i have always had a sneaking envy for those people who seem to be able to bound out of bed, functioning perfectly. i have to use two alarm clocks on work mornings.
the prolonged hammering at my door finally awakened me. i groped blindly for my bathrobe, and shouldered into it as i walked heavily, still drugged with sleep, from the bedroom of my apartment out through the living room to the front door.
i just finished a science-fantasy, as i believe macdonald calls it in an afterword...possibly the second story he ever wrote...marked it as a favorite Wine of the Dreamers check it out. good read
a note on the narration
t'would appear that this is a 1st person, eye-narrated piece.
time place scene settings
*sunday morning in may
*clinton sewell's apartment in warren...at 989 jefferson
*locust ridge club
*smith lake...jones beach...the pryor place is here...their beach place
*the warren dump
*a logging road off the road to the lake
*warren tube & cylinder division of consolidated pneumatic, inc. where clinton sewell is employed
*toni's apartment at 985 jefferson
*the c.p.p. building on madison near 50th in new york
*the tree on the pryor farm
*the raymond residence
*police station/jail/interrogation room
*raphael's...a little place on broad...bar restaurant
*warren public library...the office of two newspapers in warren, one establish in 1822
characters major minor peripheral real imagined name only
*clinton sewell: our hero, eye narrator. he has an apartment in warren...works at the warren tube & cylinder division of consolidated pneumatic, incorporated...this is his second summer in warren, his second summer in the midwest, and he finds mary dead in his closet, strangled with a belt he never uses
*two men standing on the shallow front stoop, one in uniform, one not
*mary olan:
*some woman...golf...with mary, 27 holes...name provided later in story, neale bettinger...repeatedly mistakenly called miss bettson by the cops
*mary's aunt
*the raymonds...friends of mary's...clinton's
*the commissioner of public safety
*the pryors...the olans...money families
*dodd raymond, clinton's boss...and it is implied that mary and dodd are an item...and that clinton is trying to help...end it. seems like nancy knows, nancy, dodd's wife...or, that is implied
*nancy raymond, dodd's wife
*some fool...who turned into the driveway...waiters, doormen
*an energetic salesman
*mrs speers, busybody landlady of clinton's...she was married, raised a family, but lives alone now
*rolph and nadine olan...possibly mary's parents? nadine was a pryor is in a hospital...sounds like...she killed her husband who was cheating on her
*a taxi driver...who drives clinton to retrieve his car at the club
*willy pryor, is/was nadine olan's brother
*myrna hubbard...married to willy pryor
*mrs speers youngest daughter...who played with mary olan when they were younger
*father and two yellow-headed boys...at the warren dump
*various clerks...taxi drivers...a multitude of women characters who open doors, answer telephones.
*three girl children of myrna and willy pryor:
*jigger, dusty & skeeter...15, 16, & 17
*john fidd...works the pryor farm and tends to the beach property
*swedish lady, mrs. johannsen. cook
*her daughter ruth, who helps cook...cleans
*nels yeagger...keeps the boats running, odd jobs...all four of these/above work for the pryor family
*tony wylan, friend of clinton sewell...he is in new york...and provides information as needed
*dodd raymond's mother...and her nurse
*the guys on clint's level at brookways...the plant where he works...the girls in the office
*a woman with a top sergeant voice
*a hollow-eyed brunette with a staccato bray
*meyer davis and bobby hackett...real life musicians?
*a man who looked like a bald pekingese
*a junior miss
*marciano...the boxer/fighter...hemingway...john donne
*homer stace, executive vice president in charge of production, member of the board
*sharp-eyed girls from the offices
*a soft-voiced duchess...a golden girl
*a troop of brownies...one brownie...her mother
*judson sutton, chief of police, warren
*captain joseph kruslov, related to gus kruslov, who works at the plant where clint sewell is employed
*paul france...a private investigator hired by the family
*men who dated mary...
*bill mulligan...don rhoades...mr sewell...nels yeagger
*watson, a cop, a sergeant behind a wicket...a bored man...a sniffling girl...a short fat matron
*yeagger was with a guy and two girls...one of the girls had a husband
*the girl at the piano in raphael's...sounds like or style like previn...presumably a real life musician?
*clinton sewell's girl...secretary, antonia "toni" macrae
*danny, a cop...tow truck driver
*mrs. timberland...toni's landlady
*jerry hyers, a lawyer
*reverend doctor lamarr
*mr upmann...to do with funerals
*a young lady, miss angora, with very large breasts that point the way...the upstairs girl
*the people with regular hours were leaving
*a bouncy, swarthy little girl
*simpy...one of the horses at the pryor farm
*ray walt...the previous head honcho at the plant where clint is employed
an oddball metaphor/simile
clint's hands are like the frail drifting wings of toy gliders...say whud? heh!
update, 27 dec 14, saturday morning 5:50 a.m. e.s.t.
and i'm done. good story. be interesting to read a biography of macdonald...see what is there. 'cause his fiction is suggestive, as are the promotional photographs on the back cover. reading macdonald's stories, you begin to get a sense of the dynamic between men and women, a sense of what was allowed and what was taken...you begin (i do) to recall scenes from black and white television...back when you had to traverse the living room to change the channel on the old philco...or follow the same path and reach behind the warm box to turn the controls, get the picture to stop rolling top to bottom or from side to side. you recall the fluttering eyelids of the dame in the arms of the man...always in coat and tie...the lady in a dress...lipstick...all of them playing a part. and then you think back to the first time you set behind the wheel...ma in the front seat the old man in the back and you, worrying about how you turn the wheel...the actors on teevee always turned the wheel...a lot...and you're worried, is that how it is?
reading the stories...i dunno...maybe you notice the pendulum swing. macdonald uses the phrase in this one, the evil of righteousness and what with the permissible denigration of all things religious in our time you begin to wonder if things haven't always been that way. pendulum? what pendulum? you have these men and women, many of them in macdonald's stories prone to the same urges that provides opportunity for a president to do what he did...much like a macdonald character, half the globe wanting to punish, the other half turning away. seems like there is that...conflict of desires in the stories...and i've wondered if the same conflict was present in his life. a desire to be good...whatever that is...and a desire to be bad...whatever that is.
i'm not getting anywhere, am i? heh! so...good story, good read. there's quite a cast of characters here...all manner of people. some elements are off...but they move the story and help end it and that's the way, oh ho, uh huh, we like it.
this is #14 from macdonald for me...128 page paperback with the title you kill me..."previously published as you live once"
copyright 1956 john d macdonald...original title: you live once
this edition, january, 1961, you kill me
story opens:
i have never awakened easily. i have always had a sneaking envy for those people who seem to be able to bound out of bed, functioning perfectly. i have to use two alarm clocks on work mornings.
the prolonged hammering at my door finally awakened me. i groped blindly for my bathrobe, and shouldered into it as i walked heavily, still drugged with sleep, from the bedroom of my apartment out through the living room to the front door.
i just finished a science-fantasy, as i believe macdonald calls it in an afterword...possibly the second story he ever wrote...marked it as a favorite Wine of the Dreamers check it out. good read
a note on the narration
t'would appear that this is a 1st person, eye-narrated piece.
time place scene settings
*sunday morning in may
*clinton sewell's apartment in warren...at 989 jefferson
*locust ridge club
*smith lake...jones beach...the pryor place is here...their beach place
*the warren dump
*a logging road off the road to the lake
*warren tube & cylinder division of consolidated pneumatic, inc. where clinton sewell is employed
*toni's apartment at 985 jefferson
*the c.p.p. building on madison near 50th in new york
*the tree on the pryor farm
*the raymond residence
*police station/jail/interrogation room
*raphael's...a little place on broad...bar restaurant
*warren public library...the office of two newspapers in warren, one establish in 1822
characters major minor peripheral real imagined name only
*clinton sewell: our hero, eye narrator. he has an apartment in warren...works at the warren tube & cylinder division of consolidated pneumatic, incorporated...this is his second summer in warren, his second summer in the midwest, and he finds mary dead in his closet, strangled with a belt he never uses
*two men standing on the shallow front stoop, one in uniform, one not
*mary olan:
*some woman...golf...with mary, 27 holes...name provided later in story, neale bettinger...repeatedly mistakenly called miss bettson by the cops
*mary's aunt
*the raymonds...friends of mary's...clinton's
*the commissioner of public safety
*the pryors...the olans...money families
*dodd raymond, clinton's boss...and it is implied that mary and dodd are an item...and that clinton is trying to help...end it. seems like nancy knows, nancy, dodd's wife...or, that is implied
*nancy raymond, dodd's wife
*some fool...who turned into the driveway...waiters, doormen
*an energetic salesman
*mrs speers, busybody landlady of clinton's...she was married, raised a family, but lives alone now
*rolph and nadine olan...possibly mary's parents? nadine was a pryor is in a hospital...sounds like...she killed her husband who was cheating on her
*a taxi driver...who drives clinton to retrieve his car at the club
*willy pryor, is/was nadine olan's brother
*myrna hubbard...married to willy pryor
*mrs speers youngest daughter...who played with mary olan when they were younger
*father and two yellow-headed boys...at the warren dump
*various clerks...taxi drivers...a multitude of women characters who open doors, answer telephones.
*three girl children of myrna and willy pryor:
*jigger, dusty & skeeter...15, 16, & 17
*john fidd...works the pryor farm and tends to the beach property
*swedish lady, mrs. johannsen. cook
*her daughter ruth, who helps cook...cleans
*nels yeagger...keeps the boats running, odd jobs...all four of these/above work for the pryor family
*tony wylan, friend of clinton sewell...he is in new york...and provides information as needed
*dodd raymond's mother...and her nurse
*the guys on clint's level at brookways...the plant where he works...the girls in the office
*a woman with a top sergeant voice
*a hollow-eyed brunette with a staccato bray
*meyer davis and bobby hackett...real life musicians?
*a man who looked like a bald pekingese
*a junior miss
*marciano...the boxer/fighter...hemingway...john donne
*homer stace, executive vice president in charge of production, member of the board
*sharp-eyed girls from the offices
*a soft-voiced duchess...a golden girl
*a troop of brownies...one brownie...her mother
*judson sutton, chief of police, warren
*captain joseph kruslov, related to gus kruslov, who works at the plant where clint sewell is employed
*paul france...a private investigator hired by the family
*men who dated mary...
*bill mulligan...don rhoades...mr sewell...nels yeagger
*watson, a cop, a sergeant behind a wicket...a bored man...a sniffling girl...a short fat matron
*yeagger was with a guy and two girls...one of the girls had a husband
*the girl at the piano in raphael's...sounds like or style like previn...presumably a real life musician?
*clinton sewell's girl...secretary, antonia "toni" macrae
*danny, a cop...tow truck driver
*mrs. timberland...toni's landlady
*jerry hyers, a lawyer
*reverend doctor lamarr
*mr upmann...to do with funerals
*a young lady, miss angora, with very large breasts that point the way...the upstairs girl
*the people with regular hours were leaving
*a bouncy, swarthy little girl
*simpy...one of the horses at the pryor farm
*ray walt...the previous head honcho at the plant where clint is employed
an oddball metaphor/simile
clint's hands are like the frail drifting wings of toy gliders...say whud? heh!
update, 27 dec 14, saturday morning 5:50 a.m. e.s.t.
and i'm done. good story. be interesting to read a biography of macdonald...see what is there. 'cause his fiction is suggestive, as are the promotional photographs on the back cover. reading macdonald's stories, you begin to get a sense of the dynamic between men and women, a sense of what was allowed and what was taken...you begin (i do) to recall scenes from black and white television...back when you had to traverse the living room to change the channel on the old philco...or follow the same path and reach behind the warm box to turn the controls, get the picture to stop rolling top to bottom or from side to side. you recall the fluttering eyelids of the dame in the arms of the man...always in coat and tie...the lady in a dress...lipstick...all of them playing a part. and then you think back to the first time you set behind the wheel...ma in the front seat the old man in the back and you, worrying about how you turn the wheel...the actors on teevee always turned the wheel...a lot...and you're worried, is that how it is?
reading the stories...i dunno...maybe you notice the pendulum swing. macdonald uses the phrase in this one, the evil of righteousness and what with the permissible denigration of all things religious in our time you begin to wonder if things haven't always been that way. pendulum? what pendulum? you have these men and women, many of them in macdonald's stories prone to the same urges that provides opportunity for a president to do what he did...much like a macdonald character, half the globe wanting to punish, the other half turning away. seems like there is that...conflict of desires in the stories...and i've wondered if the same conflict was present in his life. a desire to be good...whatever that is...and a desire to be bad...whatever that is.
i'm not getting anywhere, am i? heh! so...good story, good read. there's quite a cast of characters here...all manner of people. some elements are off...but they move the story and help end it and that's the way, oh ho, uh huh, we like it.
June 8, 2018
“You Live Once,” by John D. MacDonald is written in the first person and done well. Clint Sewell is framed for the murder of the woman he dated the night before the book opens. Of course, he didn’t help himself by finding the body and trying to get rid of it. He is no detective, but works hard to find the killer before the law catches up to him, but to no avail. Halfway through the story, he’s booked and jailed. His investigative work brings about an intimate relationship with a great gal and has her as an ally. With her help and money Clint is released on bond and goes back to tracking the real killer. Great action, great emotion, great plot, just what you expect from a MacDonald novel.
October 28, 2020
Three and a half! Here we have another sap who seems to fall in love with the last woman he was with, making a series of inexplicable decisions that get him into big trouble! This is decent, old-school JDM set against the backdrop of a Corporate/Industrial type environment. The particular twist to this story is how a Production Manager gets to mingle with the social set of the old money crowd. The ending to this mystery is somewhat predictable, yet well written like a good episode of Perry Mason or Matlock. This is nowhere near the best of JDM. However it does share many of the trademark elements of his better novels.
November 18, 2019
So enjoying these books
I have loved John D MacDonald's books for years . I used to have a collection of every one of them in paperback but I no longer had room for them and had to part with them. Now I'm so happy to find that I can get them through Kindle books . My only complaint is that there are a lot of typos, misspellings and grammatical errors. I know John D MacDonald did not make those errors. It would be good if whoever is translating these books would actually proofread their work.
I have loved John D MacDonald's books for years . I used to have a collection of every one of them in paperback but I no longer had room for them and had to part with them. Now I'm so happy to find that I can get them through Kindle books . My only complaint is that there are a lot of typos, misspellings and grammatical errors. I know John D MacDonald did not make those errors. It would be good if whoever is translating these books would actually proofread their work.
July 17, 2024
My first foray into the hardboiled genre. As much as I love noir, I've never tried to seek out the literary genre it originated with but that ends today. This also isn't a book I actually looked for, but rather one I happened to pick up at a library giveaway over a year ago; a decayed early 50s paperback that I decided to give a go when my internet went out last week. I was surprised to find myself instantly drawn in- the opening chapter is incredible! The book has flaws but overall I'd say it was certainly good. Luckily, I picked up like 7 other books by this same author in the giveaway!
June 23, 2019
Certainly some unexpected twists
I didn't guess the Villain this whodone it until it jumps out and hit me. Everyone from the protagonist on is under suspicion. The relation between the protagonist and the leasing female characters is dated in many ways. For instance the elderly female landlord who evicts an unmarked female renter nature she lets a man into her room.
I didn't guess the Villain this whodone it until it jumps out and hit me. Everyone from the protagonist on is under suspicion. The relation between the protagonist and the leasing female characters is dated in many ways. For instance the elderly female landlord who evicts an unmarked female renter nature she lets a man into her room.
January 6, 2026
A young manufacturing engineer is dropped off by his girlfriend after a party. The next morning, he finds her dead body in his closet. As everyone at the party saw them leave together, he is the only suspect. His boss, the girl's family, her other boyfriend, and the police all think he is guilty. Only his secretary believes he couldn't have committed the crime.
June 8, 2021
More classic early/mid era JDM. Dude wakes up and finds a dead body in his apartment. Life gets complicated. Things get a little gritty all around.
"As a desperate experiment I ate a Kleenex; it didn't help a bit" (105)
"As a desperate experiment I ate a Kleenex; it didn't help a bit" (105)
June 14, 2017
good murder mystery
March 4, 2019
good thriller. it's interesting one.
September 16, 2023
Hated the ending. Readable, otherwise.
September 17, 2024
Solid stuff here,
original plot,
believable characters,
small town secrets,
hardworking americana,
very 50s.
original plot,
believable characters,
small town secrets,
hardworking americana,
very 50s.
October 14, 2024
Although MacDonald is principally known as a mystery/thriller author, he can, on occasion, write beautiful prose. I read his books knowing such passages will eventually occur.
December 30, 2024
OK proto-Travis
May 25, 2014
I found this wonderful paperback original copy of this mystery, in excellent condition. This mystery is thoughtful the same way MacDonald's "The Executioners" (the basis of "Cape Fear") is. It doesn't have a lot to distinguish it from the work of his many Paperback Original contemporaries like Day Keene, Gil Brewer, Peter Rabe, Harry Whittington, and company. But it's in interesting view of 1950's corporate and suburban culture as young executive Clint Sewell, swept up in the petit-bourgeois lifestyle of dating and cook-outs, get involved with hot debutante Mary Olan, who it turns out is boinking his married boss. The marketing of the paperback leverages sex, emphasizing the "three women" whom Sewell gets involved with before being framed with Mary's murder. The lascivious description of women, even minor characters, is definitely part of the genre. I mean, do we really need to know that the research librarian who appears toward the end of the book had a boob job? But that said, Clint is an ethical young man who ends up doing the right thing in the pursuit of justice. The obsessed murderer does have a conscience and to some extent does get caught because of his character strengths, and the book ends with this weird little boost of confidence for American corporate culture. Overall, I recommend this book.
October 19, 2016
This is a capably written crime book. The opening is particularly good: the protagonist wakes up from a night of drinking and finds, in his walk-in closet, the corpse of a woman he knows. All subsequent action springs from how he deals with it and the question of whodunnit.
MacDonald paints a convincing portrait of 1950's corporate culture and its tension with home life and growing sexual freedom. The drama unfolds in a small town in the midwest, dominated by two wealthy families and an engineering conglomerate.
The following sentence is exemplary of MacDonald's style, which can switch rapidly between the the sentimental and the hard-boiled:
"She smelled of all the summer gardens of my childhood, with a dash of Pepsodent." (Protagonist's interior monologue, after he and his secretary finally realize that they are mutually smitten with each other.) MacDonald is a master of offering certain sparse subtleties of observation that make his characters and their milieu seem tangible.
A quick, enjoyable read!
MacDonald paints a convincing portrait of 1950's corporate culture and its tension with home life and growing sexual freedom. The drama unfolds in a small town in the midwest, dominated by two wealthy families and an engineering conglomerate.
The following sentence is exemplary of MacDonald's style, which can switch rapidly between the the sentimental and the hard-boiled:
"She smelled of all the summer gardens of my childhood, with a dash of Pepsodent." (Protagonist's interior monologue, after he and his secretary finally realize that they are mutually smitten with each other.) MacDonald is a master of offering certain sparse subtleties of observation that make his characters and their milieu seem tangible.
A quick, enjoyable read!
February 1, 2013
The mystery of who killed the girl and why is second to John D. MacDonald's masterful depiction of the post-war industrial executive shuttled to a new location every few years by a faceless corporation in search of efficiency and standardization. Everyman Clint Sewall is one of JDM's competent execs who makes a bad non-business error.
Clint Sewall is awakened by police looking for the woman, Mary Olan, he had been out with the prior evening. He tells them that she dropped him off and drove home and they are supposed to go to the lake that afternoon. When he dresses to go out, he finds Mary's body in his closet, strangled with his belt. Panicing, he loads the body in his trunk and drops it in a ravine on the way to the lake. He immediately regrets his decision but can't see a good way out.
Clint Sewall is awakened by police looking for the woman, Mary Olan, he had been out with the prior evening. He tells them that she dropped him off and drove home and they are supposed to go to the lake that afternoon. When he dresses to go out, he finds Mary's body in his closet, strangled with his belt. Panicing, he loads the body in his trunk and drops it in a ravine on the way to the lake. He immediately regrets his decision but can't see a good way out.
June 25, 2013
A friend had recommended the John MacDonald mysteries to me which I have enjoyed. This is my 5th or 6th MacDonald and appealed to me the least. It had little rythym and went from situation to situation without logic or continuity. He would solve a problem and I would feel like I missed the the punchline. In any case, I have enjoyed his novels, particularly the "Travis McGhee" series and will continue to read more, although I hope this one was an exception.
August 4, 2008
I don't know what this cover is on the picture for this book, or why it says "You Kill Me." My copy has a very different cover. It's a great book.
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