“A Knight in Rusted Armor”
photo: dorothy prentiss macdonald
You are reading: Best john d macdonald books
john d. Macdonald (1916-1986) is most famous for his phenomenally popular Travis McGee novels about the adventures of a tough, cynical and philosophical knight errant who lives on a houseboat, The Busted Flush, in Fort Lauderdale. the series began with the deep blue goodbye in 1964 and concluded, 20 books later, with the lonely silver rain in 1985.
in 1955 he won the ben franklin award for best american short story and in 1964 he received the grand prix de litterature policiere for the french edition of a key to the suite. In 1972, Macdonald was named Grand Master of America’s Mystery Writers. In 1980 he won the American Book Award for his Travis McGee mystery The Green Ripper. He spent the last years of his life in Florida with his wife and son and died in 1986.
Macdonald’s work has influenced many contemporary authors, from Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark to Lee Child, who has called McGee “a knight in rusty armor.” Sue Grafton has called Macdonald “a dominant influence” on the genre, while Dean Koontz crowned him “my favorite novelist of all time.”
I interviewed John D. macdonald three times over the years, twice per mystery scene.
My impression of him was that he was neither humble nor arrogant. he took pride in his writing, but he felt that much of it did not work out as he had hoped. he once told me that he sometimes judged his books by percentages. this book did 70 percent of what he expected; that did 80 percent.
he was generally nice to other writers, especially charles williams, whom he mentioned in two different interviews. She seemed to feel, as I did, that Williams should have snapped. My feeling was that Williams was too dark for the middle-class readers who flocked to Macdonald’s later work, which is funny because his early Golds and Dells were pretty bleak.
i think i’m borrowing from larry block when i say that some critics, especially in europe, thought macdonald was tamed by the lights of jim thompson and david goodis. they did not capture the spiritual violence of novels like the key to the suite (about a sales convention) and the door slam (the void of success). most of us die little deaths except for the final big death. we lose jobs, colleagues, dignity. a key to the suite, for example, charts the demise of several careers and at least two marriages in ways as powerful and memorable as any gunfight.
See Also: The Best Muriel Spark Books | Five Books Expert Recommendations
I enjoyed the travis mcgees, but always felt they were inferior to his work outside of the series. they made him rich and famous, but he often felt like he wanted to keep writing books like Low Tide and The End of the Night. Those early Golds and Dells were some of the best crime novels of his generation.
In January, Random House will begin releasing, for the first time, e-book editions of 70 John D. the macdonald novels, including all travis mcgee novels. At the same time, Random House will publish, also for the first time, McGee’s novels in trade paperback.
in addition, random house will publish some of macdonald’s long-out-of-print classics as e-book editions, beginning in june 2013, and will continue trade paperback and e-book releases of the stand-alone novels Macdonald’s highlights, including the iconic Cloak of Fear, throughout the year and into 2014.
here is a list of some of my favorites, which means they have been reread for many decades.
1. dead low tide here you saw how jdm differed from most hard-boiled paperback writers by bringing crime to the middle class. the falsely accused protagonist is an estimator of construction, although he has had a tough military training, trying to make his way in his vocation. in this first book jdm found his voice. the romantic, the social scold, the intelligent avenger. the killer is one of jdm’s best and darkest creations.
2. soft touch pure noir. A man married to a fool and employed by his father teams up with an old friend from the army to do a prank that will make them rich. many reviewers have complained that jdm’s romantic dialogue is sometimes so cheesy it’s painful. you won’t find any of that here. when the protagonist talks to his wife, probably disloyal, the rancor is ruthless. soft touch is a brutal ride with an ending that jim thompson would have envied.
3. Deadly Welcome Although not as ambitious as some of his other books, Deadly Welcome is a violent and melancholic journey through time. a state department employee named alex doyle is ordered to go to a small town and convince a troubled scientist who can’t get over the murder of his wife to come back to dc and work for him on a secret project . The problem is that this is the town where Doyle grew up living in a slum. he returns reluctantly, with a grudge, looking for a killer and a way to purge himself of his rage. Not all jdm fans like this novel, but I’ve read it three or four times and enjoyed it on every trip.
See Also: Top 10 Best Basketball Coaching Books in 2022
4. murder in the wind you could consider this tribute from jdm to the bridge of san luis rey and/or cayo Largo. five disparate groups of people take shelter in an old house to wait out a hurricane. thrill of turning pages as they tear each other apart and mother nature tears them apart. In terms of scope and aspirations, Murder in the Wind is his attempt to go big. the full range of jdm skills can be found in this fascinating novel.
5. Executioners jdm didn’t like Cape Fear, the brilliant 1962 film adaptation of this novel. perhaps because the book and the movie differ in certain critical ways. As savage as the movie is, the book’s ending is even more ruthless in this stunning tale of a lawyer’s revenge against a sociopath who has been harassing his family. read the book, watch the movie, as the flacks used to say.
6. slam the big door is really more of a good conventional novel than a thriller. a man, haunted by the death of his wife, decides to visit an old friend who seems to have it all. But upon discovering what his friend’s life is really like, the protagonist must face himself in ways he has always avoided. this book will hurt you. few crime writers of his generation wrote so well about ordinary people and here we see jdm at the top of his career.
7. the end of the night a jdm like no other. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a number of American teenagers (singly and in small groups) were engaged in “killing for the thrill.” the notorious charles starkweather was their patron saint. here jdm writes about such a collection of young people. Stephen King admires this novel so much that he compared it to an American tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (among others). it certainly carries the same weight and genuine sense of tragedy. I can’t think of any equivalent in crime fiction. severe, honest and honorable from start to finish.
8. A KEY TO THE SUITE The more things change the more they stay the same. Though JDM is writing about the state of corporate America in 1962, much of this novel—set at a weekend business convention—remains true today. JDM shows us a number of corporate men, some on the way up and some on the way down, who must survive the numerous tests the corporate bosses use as a process of elimination. Few other writers could take a set-up like this and make it so relentlessly readable, not to mention as pungent and fierce and wise. A powerhouse little book. Dated man-woman stuff (same as the McGee novels).
9. A Flash of Green James Wing is a reporter who knows what Florida real estate developers are really up to. a widow named kat hubble lives next door to him; She loves. after he tells her that the bay she and her friends wanted to keep intact will soon fall to real estate agents, she fights back and so do the developers. the difference is that they won’t let anything stop them. even in early jdms traces of his environmentalism can be found. this is where he addresses the issue directly. those who would destroy nature are monsters, and in this long and rich novel he disarms them before it was fashionable. Ed Harris and Blair Brown starred in an excellent version of the American television movie Playhouse.
10. The Drowned This was the last of JDM’s original gold medal standalone crime novels and, to me, it’s one of their best, an ingeniously convoluted story about a woman who turns out to be a good swimmer who inexplicably drowns. the authorities see it as an accident. her sister disagrees. the protagonist is a private detective, but jdm avoids pi clichés. what makes it real, what made so many of his books real, is the corporate world depiction of both private investigation and the work of suspects. as one reviewer wrote, “it showed us how the world really works”. you want a knockout mystery, here you go.
This item first appeared in the mystery scene winter issue #128.
See Also: Barack and Michelle Obama praised Dr. Seuss during presidency