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A review by darwin8u
Darker Than Amber by John D. MacDonald
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.