A review by ncrabb
The Quick Red Fox, by John D. MacDonald
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.