Wed 9 Sep 2015
JOHN D. MacDONALD – Cinnamon Skin. Harper & Row, hardcover, 1982. Fawcett, paperback, 1983. Reprinted many times since.
As anyone who has read Free Fall in Crimson could have easily predicted, it is Travis McGee’s closest friend, Meyer, who is in dire need of rehabilitation at the beginning of Cinnamon Skin, the twentieth and latest in this best-selling series. McGee lives in a world of constant tragedy, and unfortunately that’s what it takes to snap Meyer out of his year-long doldrums.
Blown out of the water in an ear-shattering explosion, purportedly set off by an unknown group of Chilean terrorists, is Meyer’s boat, the John Maynard Keynes. (Meyer is a world- famous economist, as you may or may not be surprised to learn.)
On board was Meyer’s niece, his only living relative, and her new husband. Readers familiar with life in McGee’s universe will suspect that all is not what it seems, even before the evidence starts coming in.
The murderer’s trail leads to Texas and upstate New York before swooping back down to Mexico, where Meyer and McGee unite their efforts with those of a modern-day Mayan princess in obtaining a final bit of retribution. Their prey is a lady-killer of some duration, who promises not to yield without an all-out struggle.
Most of the action will be found in these final few chapters. Those seeking an epic saga crammed with rugged blood-and-guts action and suspense will have to look`elsewhere. This is a detective story, pure and simple, albeit with a dash more of relentless vigilantism than you’d expect in a more law-abiding sort of adventure.
As if to compensate for the lack of action in the early going, boiled away as it were in the intense Texas sun, there is enough reflective and introspective interaction and byplay between the characters to more than maintain MacDonald’s reputation as America’s number one philosophical myth-master and debunker. JDM often puts into words what the rest of us only feel.
In spite of being today the object of almost constant academic scrutiny, MacDonald has added another fine entry to his cumulative bibliography. While there is a definite feeling of déjà vu closing in, as if some elements and patterns in his work are beginning to repeat themselves, John D. MacDonald is still a slick, effective writer.
Even if much of the cruder vitality of his younger days is gone, the keen, sharp insights he has into each of his characters are still more than sufficient for them to meet any challenge he presents them with.
Rating: B plus.
September 9th, 2015 at 7:57 pm
The photo of JDM comes from the back cover of the Harper & Row edition.
Cut from this review is a first paragraph in which I talked about THE GOOD OLD STUFF, the upcoming collection of short stories JDM wrote for the pulp magazines back in the 1940s. I was looking forward to that collection with quite a bit of anticipation.
Little did I (or most anyone) know that MacDonald was “improving” and updating those old stories. I still wish that someone at the time had been able to talk him out of it.
As for CINNAMON SKIN, I’m afraid almost all of the details of the story are gone. Reading my own review, I’m tempted to read it again — and why shouldn’t I?
September 9th, 2015 at 10:13 pm
Having unmanned Meyer at the end of the previous novel it is appropriate that the entire book is spent getting him back more or less where he was before, and while the action is reserved for the final part of the book it is handsomely choreographed where Meyer gets back his sense of self without sacrificing any sense of reality.
I found it interesting just how much it throws McGee off with Meyer not on his game and how personal McGee’s quest to save Meyer becomes, certainly a reminder by JDM that both men are aspects of himself — Meyer perhaps how he saw himself in the real world in a slightly idealized form and McGee who he would have liked to have been as a fantasy figure but he is too good a writer to allow either man to be wholly heroic or deny either man insight.
This is late in JDM’s career and I always wondered if perhaps this book reflected his own mortality.
I hate when writers update stories, it is almost always a mistake. Many Cornell Woolrich reprints are rewritten in that manner, and when the writer is particularly good at capturing a place and time it can be a major mistake to make even small changes.
September 10th, 2015 at 11:12 am
One wonders what JDM might have had his characters say about politics as they are today. Scathing, I’m sure.
I read both volumes of the Good Old Stuff collections, and I certainly agree with you that it would have been better to leave them alone, they were still good stories worth reading.
I don’t remember much about this McGee, but I read this out of order, so the previous book wasn’t my lead-in. I was going to re-read the whole series, but bogged down about 4 books in and never continued.
September 10th, 2015 at 3:28 pm
I find that a big problem, too. I often tell myself I;m gong to go back and read all of an author’s work again but I never do. There are too many older books I haven’t read yet, and for some reason, there are always now books and new authors coming along.
September 11th, 2015 at 2:59 pm
With a writer as prolific as JDM there is usually something I missed among the older books. It was 1964 before I started reading him so I had a backlog. I was also just a kid so some books I enjoy now were too mature for me then.
Rereading depends on the writer. I can do a couple of Creasey or Simenon novels in a day, same with a Brett Halliday or Frank Kane. Other writers require greater effort and concentration. Some writers like Carter Brown or the Ficklings I can be done in forty minutes.