Mon 20 Mar 2023
JOHN D. MacDONALD – Pale Gray for Guilt. Travis McGee #9, Gold Medal d1893, paperback original, 1968. Lippincott, hardcover, 1971. Reprinted many times.
A friend of Travis McGee has a small business that was blocking a big land deal, and the squeeze was put on. Things went a little too far, and the friend was dead. McGee suspected murder and sought revenge for himself and for the widow and kids.
Hit them where it hurts – in this case, the wallet.
After staging a form of the pigeon drop and some crafty manipulations on Wall Street, McGee and friends are a little richer, the shrewd businessman perhaps wiser, and the murderer, XXXXXX with a feeling for power, is disposed of XXXXXX.
Future historians need not look further than books like this for the true story of civilization in 1968. MacDonald’s views on the automobile, funeral directors and hippies are pointed but accurately reflect the tolerance and frustration of all but the indifferent.
MacDonald is not a mathematician, however, nor his editors – the division of the spoils on page 160 [of the Gold Medal paperback] is short by $100,000 – hardly insignificant. He also has the problem that too many characters talk alike, with elusive meaning, justifiable in that the story is told in first person; maybe McGee really talks that way. Tremendous depth.
Rating: ****½
March 20th, 2023 at 5:57 pm
Back when I first wrote this review — some 55 years ago! — I had no idea that anyone other than myself would read it. Hence the little bit of self-censorship today.
And after chiding JDM and his editors about it, I hope my own math was correct. It would be embarrassing if not!
March 20th, 2023 at 7:43 pm
This was on the cusp of the books becoming a bit more serious with the con artist aspect of the books about to take a backseat to more serious kinds of avenging and McGee becoming a much more rounded character.
March 20th, 2023 at 8:54 pm
I binged on Travis McGee novels in the late 1960s. My favorite was A DEADLY SHADE OF GOLD but all 21 books are worth reading…and rereading.
March 20th, 2023 at 9:17 pm
You and I both, George. All us guys did at the time. What I don’t know is how many female fans Travis and JDM had.
March 21st, 2023 at 6:30 am
Steve, you have to remember that the slicks — especially those geared to a female readership — were a major market for MacDonald: WOMAN’S HOME COMPANION, TODAY’S WOMAN, and so on, and especially COSMOPOLITAN, which printed a number of abridgements of the Travis McGee series.
March 21st, 2023 at 11:16 am
You’re quite right, Jerry. Thanks! It didn’t take long to find the following in the FictionMags Index:
Bright Orange Shroud, (na) Cosmopolitan April 1965
Darker Than Amber, (na) Cosmopolitan April 1966
One Fearful Yellow Eye, (n.) Cosmopolitan November 1966
March 21st, 2023 at 3:38 pm
And from Jerry’s own blog, a much more complete list of JDM’s work in COSMOPOLITAN:
https://jerryshouseofeverything.blogspot.com/2023/03/bits-pieces.html
(and scroll down).
March 21st, 2023 at 1:00 pm
I read all of the McGees but none of the standalone novels until recently. I could not wait for the next one. The same with the Lew Archer series.
March 21st, 2023 at 2:42 pm
Thanks, Patti. So back in the day, Travis McGee was read by both men and women, and avidly too. Good to know!
March 21st, 2023 at 6:46 pm
JDM often gets criticized for his women by men who just haven’t met the type he primarily wrote about. Women readers tend to recognize them more easily and identify with them.
It comes as a shock to some men that JDM, Mickey Spillane, Ian Fleming, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Dick Francis would not have sold half as many books if they hadn’t had a strong female readership who wasn’t half as offended as some male readers are on their behalf.
In addition to McGee COSMO ran several non series JDM books in their pages.
April 16th, 2023 at 6:48 pm
Here’s some fun artwork for a John D. MacDonald story
https://64.media.tumblr.com/b00116dbcf99f1da9d16e380239fb201/3d6b7b5104681a94-91/s1280x1920/3c6bfb82bad14c0347009bfbf275ce2ada83b0c1.jpg