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Search Search Search Browse menu. Sign in. Partner libraries New! Henderson Libraries. If you were a rich widow who was dying from cancer and one of your two daughters, who had been stable and happily married for years, suddenly and mysteriously went bat shit crazy including memory loss and suicide attempts, would you: A Pour all your money and remaining time into medical and psychological doctors to try and help while also setting up a safe and protected environment for her? B Contact a shady stranger who you had a romantic fling with after your husband died and beg him to help h If you were a rich widow who was dying from cancer and one of your two daughters, who had been stable and happily married for years, suddenly and mysteriously went bat shit crazy including memory loss and suicide attempts, would you: A Pour all your money and remaining time into medical and psychological doctors to try and help while also setting up a safe and protected environment for her?
B Contact a shady stranger who you had a romantic fling with after your husband died and beg him to help her? Most people would probably pick option A, but I guess it would have been a pretty short book if the widow hadn't chosen option B. Travis McGee, the self-proclaimed salvage expert who specializes in getting back money and goods taken through scams, returns after spending weeks out on his boat and finds a letter from Helena, a woman he had helped years before and had a brief romance with.
Helena is dying and asks Travis to check on her daughter Maureen who has gone completely nuts. Travis learns that Helena died before he got the letter, and even though he doubts there is anything he can do, he travels to see Maureen who is being cared for by her husband and sister.
After visiting Maureen and talking with her family, Travis thinks she is being cared for as well as possible and is about to leave town. As always, you get an interesting character with McGee, and the mystery is intriguing, if a bit wonky. But this one is actually a bit better than the previous ones. However, they seem a little less like scatter brained props and more like actual characters this time.
View all 13 comments. Aug 04, Charles van Buren rated it liked it. Not my favorite John D. MacDonald book. In fact it is my least favorite of all those I've read. The first thirty to forty percent is primarily about relationships, mostly physical relationships. I did not find it at all sensual or erotic. Parts of it read like a research paper on the subject of sex.
I have no interest in a description of the feel of teeth making contact with teeth while kissing. Perhaps others do. There is a mystery. A long, involved, convoluted mystery solved by the application Not my favorite John D. A long, involved, convoluted mystery solved by the application of a lot of luck and guesswork. And the unlikely cooperation of local law enforcement and judicial officers. Travis McGee's off hand remarks about people, society, etc. View 1 comment.
As the tenth book in John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series opens, McGee is once again called upon to restore a grieving widow to psychological and sexual health. The grateful woman, Helena Pearson, returns to her normal life, but several years later, she is dying of cancer and calls upon McGee for one last favor.
Helena's daughter, Maurie, has become mysteriously suicidal and Helena would like McGee to diagnose the problem and find a solution. McGee dutifully journeys to Fort Courtney, Florida, where Maurie lives with her husband, Tom, a high-flying local developer. Maurie's younger sister, Bridget, is also in residence, helping Tom look after Maurie.
Sadly, by the time McGee arrives, Helena has succumbed to her cancer and so McGee is left to feel his way through a very complicated situation if he's going to be of any help.
As is usually the case in one of these novels, things get complicated in a big hurry. A number of folks seem to be very interested in McGee's arrival; a couple of people will have to die; everyone will be enormously confused and only McGee may be smart enough and devious enough to sort things out.
Like all of the McGee novels, this one is obviously dated, and McGee spends a lot of time philosophizing about the world around him. There's not as much action in this book as in most of the others in the series--things are a bit more cerebral--and there's not a hulking, giant, Neanderthalish brute of an adversary as there often is. The climax beggars belief a bit, but still, it's a fun read and anyone who enjoys the series will certainly want to find this entry.
View all 11 comments. After a few dated cultural references, I checked the publishing date about a quarter of the way into the book — Thank you. The first couple of chapters are a bit of a treasure-hunting story from another time, seemingly tacked on here for some reason, until a letter arrives from an old flame and compels McGee to tilt at more windmills on behalf of an old flame's daughter. The prose is excellent, the pace is blisterin 5 Stars A very complex and compelling mystery.
The prose is excellent, the pace is blistering, the mystery terrific, the villains evil, and the climax and ending are poignant. Only a few quotes from this book - McGee contemplates the mechanised future - Nobody looks far enough down the road we're going. Someday one man at a big button board can do all the industrial production for the whole country by operating the machines that make the machines that design and make the rest of the machines.
Then where is the myth about anybody who wants a job being able to find it? Lorette Walker, no solutions for me or thee, not from your leaders be they passive or militant, nor from the politicians or the liberals or the head- knockers or the educators.
No answer but time. And if the law and the courts can be induced to become color-blind, we'll have a good answer, after both of us are dead. And a bloody answer otherwise. View 2 comments. Feb 11, Jean rated it liked it Shelves: mystery , fiction. Travis McGee receives a letter from a woman he had a brief romance with years ago; she is dying and asks McGee to help her daughter, Maureen. McGee learns the woman died before he got the letter. Maureen has gone bonkers. So, does the death have something to do with her condition?
MacDonald is a master story teller and that comes through in this story. He was one of the top pulp writers of the a Travis McGee receives a letter from a woman he had a brief romance with years ago; she is dying and asks McGee to help her daughter, Maureen. He was one of the top pulp writers of the and s. Typical of the time it was written, the story is racist and sexist. The story takes place in Florida as do most of his books. The language is also typical of the time frame.
It is sort of fun to step back in time and see how far society has come, or not. I read this as a paperback. The book has pages and was published in Sep 03, Greg rated it really liked it Shelves: 20th-century , midth-century-american-crime , reviewed. McGee's the kind of guy you can trust, and would be handy in a jam. Not because you'd need ask for help, but because he just would.
Cause he is McGee. And it's true: McGee loves the ladies. However, he is surprisingly choosy and often says no, and all in all treats the women in his life with respect. There is an occasional, dated, misstep in this element.
That said, this work from the Summer of Love is very good: MacDonald must have been under the influence of something or someone really good. I liked this contrast very much and immediately I want to know more of the dead woman-Helena Pearson-and more about what was salvaged and why it was there in the first place.
She is asking McGee for a favor and he moves forward in compliance. In effect he is working for a dead person. Solid going. Standard for the genre, but MacDonald does it justice, turns up the knob, and delivers. There is much action in, on, and around the Keys of Florida, and MacDonald seems to know the area like the back of his hand. A long cruise with McGee and Helena is beautifully done. Summary: Overall, my rating is 4. If you want a great look at the Keys, and cruising, and salvaging, and southern Florida, this is the book for you.
It isn't often one takes the time, or needs to take the time in this genre to notice the writing itself, but here MacDonald writes some nice things, like "Up early Tuesday Each morning you wake up a slightly different person If you read one McGee story, make sure this is it.
Dec 15, Harv Griffin rated it it was amazing Shelves: reviewed , own. There is a lot of elaborate back-story here, that may put off readers who want a murder on the first page, a fist fight on page two, and a car chase by page five; but John D. As usual, Travis goes shuffling and blundering into some potentially criminal situation driven by misguided loyalty or a debt he thinks he owes to someone; in this novel a dead woman. By page 72 a man and woman try to drug Travis and question him at gunpoint.
By page Travis is questioned by two detectives—because the woman half of the pair who tried to question him at gunpoint was found murdered, and Travis is the main suspect. And the ending! Oh, baby! I absolutely LOVE the ending. What I want to know is how John D.
MacDonald knew so much about human nature to write scenes that surprise me and awe me with secret knowledge about us critters called humans. Was he tapping random phone conversations? Was he privy to police interrogations?
Was John D. MacDonald got a read on all of us back in the Sixties. View all 3 comments. May 31, Bill rated it really liked it Shelves: challenges , mystery-us , detective. I've been enjoying the Travis McGee series very much. I finally tried the 1st book back in and have enjoyed following the series since.
In this story we find McGee back in his familiar territory of Florida. McGee and his buddy Meyer are helping two friends test an invention for raising sunken ships. Their attempt is successful. But the trip reminds McGee of an old friend.
Yea I've been enjoying the Travis McGee series very much. Years before he had helped Helena Pearson when her husband died. He had helped sell their ship and he had taken Helena on a cruise to help her adjust to her new life. Of course this cruise did have a physical element to it. Back to the present, McGee, upon returning home with Meyer, he finds a letter from Helena's lawyer. Helena has died of cancer and she asks McGee to come help her two daughters. Maureen, the eldest, is having severe emotional issues after having suffered two miscarriages and Maureen's husband and Bridget are forced to look after her.
McGee travels up the coast to Fort Courtney where he finds a twisted, weird situation. Maureen is basically childlike; with bursts of activity when she can escape her home. She is being treated with medication but also a machine, Dormed, which sends electrical waves into her brain to help her sleep very strange. Sign in to see the full collection. Fiction Mystery Suspense Thriller. Publisher: Random House Publishing Group.
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