atarbett's review
4.0
There's so many times I had to step away from this book and go "It's a product of its time. It's a product of its time." I love this series and Travis McGee, but the attitude towards women can be a bit much sometimes. And when he encounters the "colony of the butch" and their "brides" I about lost it.
Still the story was good enough, so I can't complain too much.
Update for Read #2… he uses “flavor” all the fucking time. It’s really annoying and whenever I see it, I get a twitch.
Still the story was good enough, so I can't complain too much.
Update for Read #2… he uses “flavor” all the fucking time. It’s really annoying and whenever I see it, I get a twitch.
readinggrrl's review against another edition
4.0
I love mystery novels and old fashioned hard boiled detective novels are a passion. Travis McGee definitely delivers. Dashing yet with scruples Travis takes on cases where his fee is half of the value of whatever he is hired to get back plus expenses. When the client is an actress those expenses can certainly pile up.
In a time without cell phones or computers detectives had it a lot harder, now days it seems anyone can be a detective. This is a fast paced thrill ride with a great cast of characters. I can't wait to read another, and another....
In a time without cell phones or computers detectives had it a lot harder, now days it seems anyone can be a detective. This is a fast paced thrill ride with a great cast of characters. I can't wait to read another, and another....
ncrabb's review against another edition
3.0
I can’t quite articulate why I keep coming back to these Travis McGee books. The plots are anything but deep, and they are more predictable than a Star Trek episode—the one where Captain Kirk always gets the girl? Kirk and McGee lived centuries apart and in very different fictional universes, but by golly, they never fail to get the girl and then shrug her off so they can move on to the next book or planet unencumbered.
McGee is enjoying some classical music pumping through new speakers he had installed on his boat before the book began. A woman with whom he is friends rather than lovers because they apparently can’t gain sexual compatibility is in the boat with him drawing pictures for a children’s book. The two are in companionable silence like that for several pages when they are interrupted by the entrance of a tall, slender woman who is all business. She informs McGee that her boss wants him to work for her, and since the woman can’t come to McGee because her public persona is so high she’ll be immediately recognized, he agrees to go to her.
The “her” in question is a high-profile movie star named Lisa Dean. She had a drunken orgy with a group of folks a few months earlier, and now pictures have surfaced—pictures for which Lisa has been blackmailed. She has already paid a healthy sum to rid her of the blackmailer, but of course, that fails. Now she wants McGee to free her of a situation that would surely end her career.
She offers a substantial amount of money, and McGee is both mentally and hormonally intrigued by her administrative assistant. The combination of the money and the tall all-business assistant ensures McGee’s interest in the case.
To his credit, McDonald figures out a relatively ingenious way of solving the crime, and that makes it worth your proceeding to the final page.
McGee is enjoying some classical music pumping through new speakers he had installed on his boat before the book began. A woman with whom he is friends rather than lovers because they apparently can’t gain sexual compatibility is in the boat with him drawing pictures for a children’s book. The two are in companionable silence like that for several pages when they are interrupted by the entrance of a tall, slender woman who is all business. She informs McGee that her boss wants him to work for her, and since the woman can’t come to McGee because her public persona is so high she’ll be immediately recognized, he agrees to go to her.
The “her” in question is a high-profile movie star named Lisa Dean. She had a drunken orgy with a group of folks a few months earlier, and now pictures have surfaced—pictures for which Lisa has been blackmailed. She has already paid a healthy sum to rid her of the blackmailer, but of course, that fails. Now she wants McGee to free her of a situation that would surely end her career.
She offers a substantial amount of money, and McGee is both mentally and hormonally intrigued by her administrative assistant. The combination of the money and the tall all-business assistant ensures McGee’s interest in the case.
To his credit, McDonald figures out a relatively ingenious way of solving the crime, and that makes it worth your proceeding to the final page.
cafo6's review against another edition
5.0
MacDonald’s descriptions got me again... Vegas from the air as a toy city kit, strewn by a child’s foot. A muscular man who is “muscles upon muscles” on up to a face that is a “leather bag of walnuts”. But sad, too, because of Dana, because of the ending, and alone he is again just as Reacher will be in later books and just as Bill Bixby always was, walking away to the refrain of a sad, sad song in the shows I grew up on.
eclipse777's review against another edition
4.0
Some tiny outdated views in this one but I can give it a pass considering how long ago the book was published. You think the mystery is obvious all the way to the end but at the last minute the mystery isn't so obvious so more well not to me anyway, a nice twist plus we get a tragic romance thrown in which is quite heartbreaking for our hero. I enjoyed this one but not as much as the other McGee novel's I've read so far.
johnnygamble's review against another edition
3.0
I dunno. Very dated philosophizing, and magical leaps in detection, spoiled it.
yaj's review against another edition
5.0
Great mystery filled with great characters with interesting motivations, including a host of bad people ranging from petty villainy to monstrous. Liked Travis McGee's jaded philosophy, the amount of detail put into even incidental characters, and the bittersweetness of the ending.
fleurette's review against another edition
3.0
This is a pretty good book, not truly outstanding but enjoyable. My first in this series and probably by this author.
Travis makes an interesting and complicated hero. He could be more developed, but I am generally okay with him. He is smart and most of the time he didn’t annoy me. At the same time, I think that Dana's character is not entirely successful. Something is missing. Some consistency of personality. Consequence in actions. This inconsistency seemed strange to me most of the time. There is something off about her making her an unquestionably one-time character.
The plot line is nice. The search for a blackmailer is a positive change from the usual search for a murderer. Of course, there are also some dead bodies here. The identity of the killer is definitively unobvious and interestingly intertwines in the whole tangled story of people who once spent some fun time together doing things they would gladly forget. And this is a very remarkable group of people with self-destructive tendencies, pretty miserable.
Anyway, I enjoyed this story and Travis as a hero, I may read another book in this series one day.
Travis makes an interesting and complicated hero. He could be more developed, but I am generally okay with him. He is smart and most of the time he didn’t annoy me. At the same time, I think that Dana's character is not entirely successful. Something is missing. Some consistency of personality. Consequence in actions. This inconsistency seemed strange to me most of the time. There is something off about her making her an unquestionably one-time character.
The plot line is nice. The search for a blackmailer is a positive change from the usual search for a murderer. Of course, there are also some dead bodies here. The identity of the killer is definitively unobvious and interestingly intertwines in the whole tangled story of people who once spent some fun time together doing things they would gladly forget. And this is a very remarkable group of people with self-destructive tendencies, pretty miserable.
Spoiler
Although if I am to be completely honest, I suspected that Lee is behind it all. For some reason, it seemed to me an obvious solution. On the one hand, I am glad that my predictions have turned out to be completely wrong, but on the other hand I think that the decision of making the villain the photographer's helper (who does not even appear in the book) is very weak.Anyway, I enjoyed this story and Travis as a hero, I may read another book in this series one day.
anoif's review against another edition
1.0
So bad! He literally says “I like obedient women”, beats up some lesbians, and utters the words “pilfered her silky little loins.” At least the girl breaks up with him in the end.