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lovelifeandbeyond's review against another edition
2.0
Meh! Story wasn't anything to write home about. Just a self declared hero trying to get the bad guys behind bars while making a tiny profit, and giving us a little peek in the dark world of sex workers.
genej101's review against another edition
5.0
The first book in which Meyer has a significant role. Great read as are all of John D. MacDonald's books.
yaj's review against another edition
5.0
A chance encounter causes the hero infiltrates a complex and deadly con game in one of the better Travis McGee novels. I liked the details of the con game and how each of the supporting characters was their own person with their own motivations and personality, and the bittersweetness of the ending.
quirkycynic's review against another edition
2.0
I get that these Travis McGee books are products of their time, and I have managed to not be too bothered by the questionable gender politics for the other installments of the series I've read so far because those were pretty fine escapist adventures.
But I had a lot harder of a time with this one. This time I really did get kind of peeved at the incredulously long passages of narration in which McGee seems to be reciting a personal philosophy about women that reads as if it came straight from a pickup artist blog. John D. MacDonald and Ian Fleming seem to share a lot of commonalities in this regard, in that they are both amazingly outspoken and wrong in their incredibly shallow observations about the female race. McGee, however, is a lot less shameful than James Bond in his opinions about women, who to him usually fall into either the categories of "whores" or "frigids who need a good dicking to become full human beings again".
As I've already said, I still can overlook dated attitudes if the book is entertaining (I'm a lifelong fan of crime fiction for god's sake). But Darker Than Amber really just didn't hook me like the other books did. A lot of it is MacDonald's writing, which had previously been clean and zippy in that old-fashioned pulpy kind of way in his other books, but which here suddenly reads like concrete -- there were so many times that I totally lost the plot of what was going on, who was who, why McGee was doing what he was doing, or what the hell anything meant at all since he seems to have abandoned clarity for the purposes of literary stylistic obfuscation. I just didn't enjoy it. There were a couple of times I was ready to stop reading out of boredom but only forced myself to keep going because the damn thing is only 170 pages.
So if the rest of the books in the series from hereon in are like this, I just don't know if I want to give any more of them a chance, especially if I know that I'll definitely never be in the McGee cult like so many other readers I'd probably never like to run into in person.
But I had a lot harder of a time with this one. This time I really did get kind of peeved at the incredulously long passages of narration in which McGee seems to be reciting a personal philosophy about women that reads as if it came straight from a pickup artist blog. John D. MacDonald and Ian Fleming seem to share a lot of commonalities in this regard, in that they are both amazingly outspoken and wrong in their incredibly shallow observations about the female race. McGee, however, is a lot less shameful than James Bond in his opinions about women, who to him usually fall into either the categories of "whores" or "frigids who need a good dicking to become full human beings again".
As I've already said, I still can overlook dated attitudes if the book is entertaining (I'm a lifelong fan of crime fiction for god's sake). But Darker Than Amber really just didn't hook me like the other books did. A lot of it is MacDonald's writing, which had previously been clean and zippy in that old-fashioned pulpy kind of way in his other books, but which here suddenly reads like concrete -- there were so many times that I totally lost the plot of what was going on, who was who, why McGee was doing what he was doing, or what the hell anything meant at all since he seems to have abandoned clarity for the purposes of literary stylistic obfuscation. I just didn't enjoy it. There were a couple of times I was ready to stop reading out of boredom but only forced myself to keep going because the damn thing is only 170 pages.
So if the rest of the books in the series from hereon in are like this, I just don't know if I want to give any more of them a chance, especially if I know that I'll definitely never be in the McGee cult like so many other readers I'd probably never like to run into in person.
darwin8u's review against another edition
3.0
“We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody threw the girl off the bridge.”
― John D. MacDonald, Darker Than Amber
A straight forward John D. MacDonald. If you can surrender to him calling one of the characters a "b!tch" with the same indulgent tenderness you give to a racist uncle or to Dire Straits when they use "f@ggot" in their song 'Money for Nothing', you will certainly survive a certain 60s to early 80s machismo/sexism thing that MacDonald carries throughout his McGee books (like a mild, itchy STD). This objectification and mild hostility, however, sometimes does distract from his clear prose, his fantastic dialogue, and intriguing plot.
This book starts with a woman thrown off a bridge and rescued by McGee and Meyer, his economist friend and drinking buddy. The rescue of a drowning damsel charts the direction of this book as McGee and Meyer engage their unique skill sets to revenge, salvage, and make the world safe again for all the bachelors of Florida.
The redeeming thing about these novels is McGee is an imperfect character similar to other great noir heroes (Spade, Marlowe, etc), but he also seems aware of his many faults and tends to take a fairly cynical view of the world he operates in. These novels explore and expose (intentionally and often unintentionally) many of the tropes and traps of the late 20th-century that made a generation grow up without a sense of honor, obligation, or outrage. Sometimes the world needs to be set straight by an angry, yet romantic bachelor on a boat fighting for nobel causes in between stints of drinking on his boat.
― John D. MacDonald, Darker Than Amber
A straight forward John D. MacDonald. If you can surrender to him calling one of the characters a "b!tch" with the same indulgent tenderness you give to a racist uncle or to Dire Straits when they use "f@ggot" in their song 'Money for Nothing', you will certainly survive a certain 60s to early 80s machismo/sexism thing that MacDonald carries throughout his McGee books (like a mild, itchy STD). This objectification and mild hostility, however, sometimes does distract from his clear prose, his fantastic dialogue, and intriguing plot.
This book starts with a woman thrown off a bridge and rescued by McGee and Meyer, his economist friend and drinking buddy. The rescue of a drowning damsel charts the direction of this book as McGee and Meyer engage their unique skill sets to revenge, salvage, and make the world safe again for all the bachelors of Florida.
The redeeming thing about these novels is McGee is an imperfect character similar to other great noir heroes (Spade, Marlowe, etc), but he also seems aware of his many faults and tends to take a fairly cynical view of the world he operates in. These novels explore and expose (intentionally and often unintentionally) many of the tropes and traps of the late 20th-century that made a generation grow up without a sense of honor, obligation, or outrage. Sometimes the world needs to be set straight by an angry, yet romantic bachelor on a boat fighting for nobel causes in between stints of drinking on his boat.
alanfederman's review against another edition
4.0
John MacDonald's Travis McGee series is one of my all-time favorites. There's enough twists and turns to keep me guessing and enough snark and wry dialogue to keep me entertained. Plus there's some biting social commentary. This wasn't the best so far, but a really enjoyable journey. I can't wait to read the next - I need to space them out lest I binge read the whole series at once.
ginpomelo's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
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