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ogreart's review against another edition
4.0
I am beginning to see why so many people are loving this series. The characters are not simple. The plots are real puzzles. And the ending, of this one, was poignant.
hagbard_celine's review against another edition
3.0
This one's a doozy. Another book, another dead woman in Travis McGee's bloody scrapbook. The dude already seems to selectively understand that his lady friends have an expiration date. What's the opposite of plot armor?
dwhite1174's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
ferrisscottr's review against another edition
2.0
This one just didn't do it for me. I love MacDonald's writings and I usually plow through his books in a few days and this one took me almost a month.
A friend shows up to town to see McGee after a long absence, he gets killed, McGee wants to find who did it. That's it.
Didn't find the plot, the writing or the characters all that interesting. At one point I put the book down and picked up and read a different book just to keep myself interested. No idea why exactly this one didn't click but it didn't.
A friend shows up to town to see McGee after a long absence, he gets killed, McGee wants to find who did it. That's it.
Didn't find the plot, the writing or the characters all that interesting. At one point I put the book down and picked up and read a different book just to keep myself interested. No idea why exactly this one didn't click but it didn't.
atarbett's review against another edition
3.0
Some thoughts...
- It makes my eye twitch when he describes a woman as "big" when he means tall. He does it several times. He has no problem calling men tall, but when it's a woman, suddenly he forgets what words are...
- OMG, the sexism is off the charts. The worst example of which is when McGee just has to feel up a fucking MANNEQUIN!
- McGee's just irresistible sexual appeal. Come on... not a woman who can resist being in his presence that doesn't start calling him "dear" or "darling". The Bang-Count is five for this book. Five and a half. For a guy that talks big about not being a man-whore, he's kind of a man-whore.
- The 60's is just very very 60's. Apart from the rampant sexism, there's McGee taking a gun on a plane. But he gets away with it because it's "hidden". Isn't that adorable?
- Only 5 "flavors" so that's pretty good. Usually he talks about flavors every other sentence.
Oh, the story? Fine, I guess. A pretty high body count. The indifference of police to blatant crimes stretched believability.
- It makes my eye twitch when he describes a woman as "big" when he means tall. He does it several times. He has no problem calling men tall, but when it's a woman, suddenly he forgets what words are...
- OMG, the sexism is off the charts. The worst example of which is when McGee just has to feel up a fucking MANNEQUIN!
- McGee's just irresistible sexual appeal. Come on... not a woman who can resist being in his presence that doesn't start calling him "dear" or "darling". The Bang-Count is five for this book. Five and a half. For a guy that talks big about not being a man-whore, he's kind of a man-whore.
- The 60's is just very very 60's. Apart from the rampant sexism, there's McGee taking a gun on a plane. But he gets away with it because it's "hidden". Isn't that adorable?
- Only 5 "flavors" so that's pretty good. Usually he talks about flavors every other sentence.
Oh, the story? Fine, I guess. A pretty high body count. The indifference of police to blatant crimes stretched believability.
mindsplinters's review against another edition
2.0
Push it to 2.5ish really because I liked quite a few aspects of it and it tied its messy self up quite nicely and satisfactorily. It was vivid and lush and dramatic and complicated and I can see how it appealed to so many people (including one of my favorite authors). The layers of McGee and his thought processes are certainly intriguing. However, he sometimes got a bit precious in his self image so I feel he's at his best when he is kept busy. It's good for his soul. The book is also a strange balance of conscience and liberalism and morality (McGee shows a remarkably advanced outlook on conservation and what people do the planet for a book published in 1965 - and a character who is a cross between beach bum and freelance mercenary) and debauchery and cheapness and sexism (McGee goes about respecting women, admiring their strength, etc... and then casually sleeps with any number of them and sometimes thinking horrible derogatory things about them). Certain bits, shall we say, don't age well. On the other hand, some things are downright prophetic. "This is the heart of contemporary propaganda, amigo, to strengthen ignorant terrible men who believe themselves to be perfect patriots."
markfeltskog's review against another edition
This is the fifth book in the Travis McGee series. It lacked, for me at least, the elegant brevity of the first four, and therefore failed to hold my interest to the extent those books did. I'm planning to casually read my way through the entire series, and I hope subsequent books were subjected to a more judicious editing.
johnnygamble's review against another edition
3.0
Dunno. Not gonna remember it months from now. Not crazy about the pseudo-philosophy in between violence and detection.
yaj's review against another edition
3.0
A thriller in which a lot of bad things happen to bad people. Darker than the previous Travis McGee adventures but I still find the writing pretty compelling.