Thu 19 Feb 2015
A Review by Mark D. Nevins: JOHN D. MacDONALD – Free Fall in Crimson.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[6] Comments
JOHN D. MacDONALD – Free Fall in Crimson. Harper & Row, hardcover, 1981. Fawcett Gold Medal, paperback, 1982. Reprinted many times since.
I’m coming to the end of my run of the McGee series: Freefall in Crimson is the antepenultimate (how often does one get to use that word?), and so I’m somewhat disappointed to say, having just finished it, that it’s probably my second-least-favorite in the series. (My least favorite is Nightmare in Pink: the story seemed contrived and the psychedelic drug references have really not aged well.)
The set-up in Crimson gave no indication that the book would fail to please: the estranged son of a wealthy businessman suspects his father was murdered, and locates problem-solver McGee through some old mutual connections (including a femme fatale from #4, The Quick Red Fox).
Sounds like a typical kickoff for Travis, but the book fails to deliver the goods, at least by the standards JDM set for himself. I have a few thoughts on what’s “wrong” with Crimson:
1. After the emotional intensity of The Green Ripper [reviewed here ], JDM may simply have been set for a let-down. (Green is far from my favorite, but it’s a massive step in a different direction from the series’ trajectory — an exhausting experience for the reader and, I expect, for the author as well.)
2. JDM is a master of storytelling and pacing, and both seemed a bit left-footed here. The chapters and “story chunks” felt disproportionate, and the “mystery” didn’t really hang together: a quick pivot from tracks discovered in the bushes to deep undercover with motorcycle gangs; some amateur porno stuff that seemed like an afterthought and lazy; and a mob scene that advances the plot in a clunky deus-ex-machina way. Even the “economics” didn’t hang together as credibly as they do in so many of the other mysteries–and that’s an area JDM loves.
3. The violence was a bit much — and more egregious than thrilling. Part of that was because it was rushed through (the main baddy Grizzel’s rampage was quick, and much of it “off-screen”), and part was that the bad guy didn’t have the deep intensity of some of the other major psychologically broken bad guys Trav has faced before. (My points 2 and 3 actually cross here–the last 30-40 pages of the book felt like they had been written in a single draft, and not polished up and filled out.)
I also wonder if, and this may be a reach, JDM wasn’t also having a sort of change-of-heart as he wrote this book — hence the strange rough treatment of Meyer at the end. As Travis the protagonist has started to get weary of the world and its changes, has MacDonald the author also grown weary of the mystery/thriller genre? To some extent Green and Crimson seem to criticize the genre itself by the way they yank us out of the comfortable mood we’ve gotten used to getting into, in a comfortable chair with a McGee in our hands. I’ll need to think more about this angle as I make my way through Cinnamon and Silver.
I can’t believe there are only two McGees left. I have sometimes thought it would be great to have someone else take a crack at a new McGee — but it would have to be a very careful choice, and I don’t like Stephen King (who has apparently offered) as a candidate. I’d choose a more “literary” writer, much as the Fleming estate has been doing with the James Bond series. Just like, as I’ve often thought, I’d love to see Garry Disher write a new Stark/Westlake “Parker” novel.
One final problem with Crimson: it’s oddly lacking in the sorts of poetic writing I’ve come to love in a McGee book. There were a few pages I dog-eared, but the passages were short and lacked the usual elaborate internal monologue:
and
(If you’ve read The Green Ripper, that last one should make you choke up a little.)
February 19th, 2015 at 10:00 pm
This felt as if JDM was in shock after GR not to mention McGee. Frankly, when I finished it I felt it had been a long set up for Meyer to find himself in as much of a crisis as McGee had earlier.
I really do think this one was all about Meyer experiencing a life altering shock that would make changes in his character as GR had in McGee’s.
It’s just harder to do a novel about the sidekick having a crisis.
Or maybe JDM was as exhausted after writing THE GREEN RIPPER as I was after reading it.
And I agree about a more literary writer continuing the series. I would love to see someone do with McGee what Boyd did with Bond in SOLO.
February 19th, 2015 at 10:58 pm
I have not read any of the non-Fleming Bond’s, and I’ve never been tempted to. I may have missed some decent efforts — Boyd among them — but that’s OK. I still have Fleming. I think it’s too late for anyone to start writing more McGee books — he’s no longer the household name he once was — but if they did, it would be a mistake. JDM and Travis McGee were two men, but one and the same. I know that doesn’t make sense, but it does to me.
February 20th, 2015 at 12:15 pm
It’s interesting how often the comments on a review can segue into comments that include something else. It’s been a very long time since I read John D. MacDonald and I probably won’t now. A couple of years ago I reread every one of the Fleming Bonds and found them better than I had remembered. I then acquired all of the non-Fleming Bonds (to that date) and started reading them. I didn’t get very far. There may be a market for them, but I don’t know what it is.
February 20th, 2015 at 3:38 pm
Randy
After the Andrew Lycett biography of Fleming there was a reassessment of his work (and most of his most virulent old maid critics were dead) and suddenly they noticed, that despite, and maybe because of the sex, sadism, and snobbery charges, Fleming was a very good writer when he chose to be. His “It reads better than it lives,” is as good an epigraph as Chandler ever came up with, though he lacked discipline as a writer.
Even in his lifetime his champions included Kingley Amis, Roald Dahl, and Simon Raven — though not always without reservations. Sebastian Faulks and William Boyd are fairly important literary voices, often short listed for the Booker prize, and admitted Bond fans, Fleming’s Bond, not the films.
Bond and Fleming have long since entered that territory where Burroughs and Tarzan and Doyle and Holmes stood before. Now with e-books the likelihood Bond or Fleming are going away is small. Ironic but Bond haters tend to be the right in this country and the left in England (not all of either, just elements). Bond being British offends many Americans on the right since he has no American counterpart nor seems likely to. Popular success alone is enough to be hated by some on the British far left.
And it doesn’t hurt that no one, no matter how good a writer they are, even if they are better than Fleming, have written civilized and savage sexy thrillers the way he did. Write a spy novel today and they well still compare you to Fleming, LeCarre, and Trevanian.
I’m not arguing your personal reaction, just saying they aren’t going away anytime soon.
Steve
I don’t disagree about JDM and McGee, and I do think his day is done despite that diCapprio film they were supposedly working on back in 2011. But if they were to try to write new ones I agree the best bet would be someone with a more literary bent.
King did, however, by his own confession, borrow quite a bit early on from how JDM told a story and developed one, if not in the McGee novels. SALEM’S LOT in particular is easy to recognize as being influenced by JDM.
Having written pastiche I can tell you all you can ever do is hint at the original, or come close to the character. My Arsene Lupin stories are not Leblanc’s Lupin, I stay true to Leblanc and Lupin, but I can only suggest the original and only truly come close when dealing with Lupin’s bravado.
On the other hand H. Bedford-Jones wrote a Sherlock Holmes pastiche that was accepted as a lost Doyle until he revealed it wasn’t. Some of it depends on how much the public wants more.
February 20th, 2015 at 11:07 pm
So, there is a market for these, but it isn’t me.
February 23rd, 2015 at 6:46 pm
First, I agree on Nightmare in Pink, which upon rereading I found pretty unpalatable. As for this one, I read it very early on in my exploration of McGee, and liked it well enough but may just not have known any better. After this and Tan and Sandy Silence I went back and began reading them in order.
If I decide to continue rereading the series, I stopped after #3, I won’t try to do so one after the other, though I pretty much did that initially.