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angelabeth995's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
rafial's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Started off strong, middle got perfunctory, ending was sudden and contrived.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia
hagbard_celine's review against another edition
2.0
Ehhhhhh. Book 4, in which Travis McGee solves the problem of an unpleasant starlet, and is rewarded with a meager payday and the opportunity to wax ugly-philosophical about the plight of lesbianism.
ferrisscottr's review against another edition
4.0
This series is always a nice way to cleanse my palette. The stories are straight forward but MacDonald is such a great writer that you never feel cheated.
We're back on the Busted Flush and Travis McGee is running out of money so it's time to go back to work > enter the Hollywood "It" girl who is being blackmailed > cross country adventures ensue.
MacDonald does not disappoint. Great characters, tight plot, lots of action and mystery and a few dead bodies.
Good stuff
We're back on the Busted Flush and Travis McGee is running out of money so it's time to go back to work > enter the Hollywood "It" girl who is being blackmailed > cross country adventures ensue.
MacDonald does not disappoint. Great characters, tight plot, lots of action and mystery and a few dead bodies.
Good stuff
atarbett's review
4.0
There's so many times I had to step away from this book and go "It's a product of its time. It's a product of its time." I love this series and Travis McGee, but the attitude towards women can be a bit much sometimes. And when he encounters the "colony of the butch" and their "brides" I about lost it.
Still the story was good enough, so I can't complain too much.
Update for Read #2… he uses “flavor” all the fucking time. It’s really annoying and whenever I see it, I get a twitch.
Still the story was good enough, so I can't complain too much.
Update for Read #2… he uses “flavor” all the fucking time. It’s really annoying and whenever I see it, I get a twitch.
readinggrrl's review against another edition
4.0
I love mystery novels and old fashioned hard boiled detective novels are a passion. Travis McGee definitely delivers. Dashing yet with scruples Travis takes on cases where his fee is half of the value of whatever he is hired to get back plus expenses. When the client is an actress those expenses can certainly pile up.
In a time without cell phones or computers detectives had it a lot harder, now days it seems anyone can be a detective. This is a fast paced thrill ride with a great cast of characters. I can't wait to read another, and another....
In a time without cell phones or computers detectives had it a lot harder, now days it seems anyone can be a detective. This is a fast paced thrill ride with a great cast of characters. I can't wait to read another, and another....
ncrabb's review against another edition
3.0
I can’t quite articulate why I keep coming back to these Travis McGee books. The plots are anything but deep, and they are more predictable than a Star Trek episode—the one where Captain Kirk always gets the girl? Kirk and McGee lived centuries apart and in very different fictional universes, but by golly, they never fail to get the girl and then shrug her off so they can move on to the next book or planet unencumbered.
McGee is enjoying some classical music pumping through new speakers he had installed on his boat before the book began. A woman with whom he is friends rather than lovers because they apparently can’t gain sexual compatibility is in the boat with him drawing pictures for a children’s book. The two are in companionable silence like that for several pages when they are interrupted by the entrance of a tall, slender woman who is all business. She informs McGee that her boss wants him to work for her, and since the woman can’t come to McGee because her public persona is so high she’ll be immediately recognized, he agrees to go to her.
The “her” in question is a high-profile movie star named Lisa Dean. She had a drunken orgy with a group of folks a few months earlier, and now pictures have surfaced—pictures for which Lisa has been blackmailed. She has already paid a healthy sum to rid her of the blackmailer, but of course, that fails. Now she wants McGee to free her of a situation that would surely end her career.
She offers a substantial amount of money, and McGee is both mentally and hormonally intrigued by her administrative assistant. The combination of the money and the tall all-business assistant ensures McGee’s interest in the case.
To his credit, McDonald figures out a relatively ingenious way of solving the crime, and that makes it worth your proceeding to the final page.
McGee is enjoying some classical music pumping through new speakers he had installed on his boat before the book began. A woman with whom he is friends rather than lovers because they apparently can’t gain sexual compatibility is in the boat with him drawing pictures for a children’s book. The two are in companionable silence like that for several pages when they are interrupted by the entrance of a tall, slender woman who is all business. She informs McGee that her boss wants him to work for her, and since the woman can’t come to McGee because her public persona is so high she’ll be immediately recognized, he agrees to go to her.
The “her” in question is a high-profile movie star named Lisa Dean. She had a drunken orgy with a group of folks a few months earlier, and now pictures have surfaced—pictures for which Lisa has been blackmailed. She has already paid a healthy sum to rid her of the blackmailer, but of course, that fails. Now she wants McGee to free her of a situation that would surely end her career.
She offers a substantial amount of money, and McGee is both mentally and hormonally intrigued by her administrative assistant. The combination of the money and the tall all-business assistant ensures McGee’s interest in the case.
To his credit, McDonald figures out a relatively ingenious way of solving the crime, and that makes it worth your proceeding to the final page.
cafo6's review against another edition
5.0
MacDonald’s descriptions got me again... Vegas from the air as a toy city kit, strewn by a child’s foot. A muscular man who is “muscles upon muscles” on up to a face that is a “leather bag of walnuts”. But sad, too, because of Dana, because of the ending, and alone he is again just as Reacher will be in later books and just as Bill Bixby always was, walking away to the refrain of a sad, sad song in the shows I grew up on.
eclipse777's review against another edition
4.0
Some tiny outdated views in this one but I can give it a pass considering how long ago the book was published. You think the mystery is obvious all the way to the end but at the last minute the mystery isn't so obvious so more well not to me anyway, a nice twist plus we get a tragic romance thrown in which is quite heartbreaking for our hero. I enjoyed this one but not as much as the other McGee novel's I've read so far.