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Travis McGee #3
A Purple Place For Dying
Clean copy. Light tanning inside cover.
158 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
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1797 people want to read
About the author
John D. MacDonald
576 books1,389 followersJohn D. MacDonald was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, and educated at the Universities of Pennsylvania, Syracuse and Harvard, where he took an MBA in 1939. During WW2, he rose to the rank of Colonel, and while serving in the Army and in the Far East, sent a short story to his wife for sale, successfully. He served in the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations. After the war, he decided to try writing for a year, to see if he could make a living. Over 500 short stories and 70 novels resulted, including 21 Travis McGee novels.
Following complications of an earlier heart bypass operation, MacDonald slipped into a coma on December 10 and died at age 70, on December 28, 1986, in St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was survived by his wife Dorothy (1911-1989) and a son, Maynard.
In the years since his death MacDonald has been praised by authors as diverse as Stephen King, Spider Robinson, Jimmy Buffett, Kingsley Amis and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Thirty-three years after his passing the Travis McGee novels are still in print.
Following complications of an earlier heart bypass operation, MacDonald slipped into a coma on December 10 and died at age 70, on December 28, 1986, in St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was survived by his wife Dorothy (1911-1989) and a son, Maynard.
In the years since his death MacDonald has been praised by authors as diverse as Stephen King, Spider Robinson, Jimmy Buffett, Kingsley Amis and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Thirty-three years after his passing the Travis McGee novels are still in print.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 453 reviews
May 4, 2020
Spring is here and even with beaches closed, I knew I could "run for cover" with a series that has never left me dry. John D. MacDonald published twenty-one Travis McGee mysteries (between 1964 and 1984) narrated by his weary "salvage consultant" who often agrees to locate missing persons or items. MacDonald was one of the earliest authors to use themed titles for their series and his wonderful use of color not only offered a visual motif to help readers tell one book from another, but generated some of my favorite titles: The Deep Blue Good-By, Darker Than Amber, The Lonely Silver Rain, etc.
Up next is A Purple Place For Dying. Published in 1964 as the third entry in the series, MacDonald shakes things up by transporting McGee far from his 52-foot houseboat The Busted Flush in Fort Lauderdale. He's introduced near the town of Esmerelda in an unspecified state in the American West. McGee has accepted plane fare from a potential client, a "ripe-bodied blonde of about thirty" named Mona Yeoman, who likes to give orders and take curves fast. She drives them out to a cabin she keeps where McGee can stay should be take the job. She explains that her husband is Jasper Yeoman, business partner of her late father and executor of her father's estate.
Accepting Jass' marriage proposal while she was tore up and need of care, Mona assumed she could divorce him and inherit the money her father had left her. Jass informs her that the estate is gone. Mona wants McGee to find proof her lawyer could not that her husband plundered her inheritance. She needs that money to divorce him and run away with a community college professor named John Webb who she's fallen in love with. McGee calculates that Mona doesn't really want to recover her inheritance or run off with any penniless lover, but make a scene of it for her husband. He's about to turn the job down when someone else does it for him.
Suddenly she plunged forward, her shoulder brushing me and knocking me back. She went with her tilted back, and she landed facedown on the baked dirt and edges of stone, and slid at least six inches after she struck, without having lifted her hands to try to break her fall. The noise that started the fall was a curiously ugly noise. It was a dull sound of impact, like the sound of burying a hatchet into a soft and rotten stump. She lay without a twitch, without sound, totally soft and flattened. I heard then the distant ringing bark of a heavy rifle, a ka-rang, echoing in the still rock hills of the windless day.
McGee waits the sniper out and confirming that Mona Yeoman is dead, manages to make his way back to where they left the car. It's gone and the road ahead blocked by a rockslide which appears dynamited. McGee walks to a roadhouse, phones the sheriff to report the murder but accompanying them back to the crime scene, find no body or trace of Mrs. Jass Yeoman. The assumption among the more dim witted of Esmerelda is that Mona has run off with her boyfriend and McGee is trying to make it seem like she was killed, but McGee lucks out when the town sheriff proves to be a good cop who doesn't buy that.
Financing his investigation with cash he removed from Mona's purse before his flight to safety, McGee checks himself into a motel and once again, determines to poke his nose where no one has asked him to poke it. Jass Yeoman drops by to size McGee up and the amateur sleuth concludes that Mona's husband was neither aware nor wanted his wife killed. He visits the college where John Webb taught and meets his sister Isobel, an intellectual who has filled in the missing spaces of her own life by trying to manage her brother's. She's sure he's run off with Mona but when McGee discovers Webb's insulin left behind, they conclude someone wanted it to look like he'd run off.
Once the sheriff turns up lung tissue belonging to Mona Yeoman at the crime scene, Jass Yeoman hires McGee to find out who killed her. The old boy admits to everything else but wanting to kill his wife, plundering her father's estate, conducting shady business deals, facing an IRS audit and fathering illegitimate children over the years. McGee narrowly saves Jass from being stabbed by an assassin and the suspects could be limitless. He tries to comfort Isobel, who's going through the five stages of grief as she realizes someone had her brother murdered. McGee came to town with regrets of his own and as he looks around at modern life, doesn't like what he sees.
Education is something which should be apart from the necessities of earning a living, not a tool therefor. It needs contemplation, fallow periods, the measured and guided study of the history of man's reiteration of the most agonizing question of all: Why? Today the good ones, the ones who want to ask why, find no one around with any interest in answering the question, so they drop out, because theirs is the type of mind which becomes monstrously bored at the trade-school concept. A devoted technician is seldom an educated man. He can be a useful man, a contented man, a busy man. But he has no more sense of the mystery and wonder and paradox of existence than does one of those chickens fattening itself for the mechanical plucking, freezing and packaging.
If Travis McGee had decided that modern living was beyond redemption, he'd be asea and never offer to help those in trouble. If he was only doing it for money, he'd be dead. A Purple Place For Dying starts off with a bang and from there, under different guises and circumstances offers all the things I love about this series: brutal violence that demands justice, hidden money, a woman who helps McGee as much as he helps her. I marvel over how MacDonald shuns trends, tech or pop culture that could date this as a product of the early '60s. The result is a timeless detective mystery. His first-person prose rolls off the page and his dialogue is often magnanimous.
She frowned across the table at me, dark glasses laid aside. "There is something about trying to kill yourself, no matter what. Maybe the ability to feel deeply. I don't know. I feel like a stranger to myself. I have to find out who I am, who I am going to be. I feel--cut loose from everything. And I have this strange little feeling of--some kind of unholy joy. Every once in a while. An electric sparkle, like knowing you're soon to go on holiday. I shouldn't feel like that for no reason. I keep wondering if something is--wrong with my mind."
"I'll make an absurd guess. Maybe you're glad to be alive."
"Not particularly. But I won't try to kill myself again."
This novel did sag in the middle for me. Like a lot of prolific authors, MacDonald was able to crank out so many books by kicking his interior editor off the boat and hitting the throttle. Dialogue runs on in some spots and characters fall into the habit of telling each other things that a more compelling story might've found ways to introduce as clues. But something else MacDonald dials in supremely well is an exciting climax, throwing McGee into a life or death struggle with someone far more desperate than he is and who always seems one step ahead of him. A Purple Place For Dying satisfied in all the ways I hoped this book would, curing my reader's block in the process.
Word count: 75,715 words
Up next is A Purple Place For Dying. Published in 1964 as the third entry in the series, MacDonald shakes things up by transporting McGee far from his 52-foot houseboat The Busted Flush in Fort Lauderdale. He's introduced near the town of Esmerelda in an unspecified state in the American West. McGee has accepted plane fare from a potential client, a "ripe-bodied blonde of about thirty" named Mona Yeoman, who likes to give orders and take curves fast. She drives them out to a cabin she keeps where McGee can stay should be take the job. She explains that her husband is Jasper Yeoman, business partner of her late father and executor of her father's estate.
Accepting Jass' marriage proposal while she was tore up and need of care, Mona assumed she could divorce him and inherit the money her father had left her. Jass informs her that the estate is gone. Mona wants McGee to find proof her lawyer could not that her husband plundered her inheritance. She needs that money to divorce him and run away with a community college professor named John Webb who she's fallen in love with. McGee calculates that Mona doesn't really want to recover her inheritance or run off with any penniless lover, but make a scene of it for her husband. He's about to turn the job down when someone else does it for him.
Suddenly she plunged forward, her shoulder brushing me and knocking me back. She went with her tilted back, and she landed facedown on the baked dirt and edges of stone, and slid at least six inches after she struck, without having lifted her hands to try to break her fall. The noise that started the fall was a curiously ugly noise. It was a dull sound of impact, like the sound of burying a hatchet into a soft and rotten stump. She lay without a twitch, without sound, totally soft and flattened. I heard then the distant ringing bark of a heavy rifle, a ka-rang, echoing in the still rock hills of the windless day.
McGee waits the sniper out and confirming that Mona Yeoman is dead, manages to make his way back to where they left the car. It's gone and the road ahead blocked by a rockslide which appears dynamited. McGee walks to a roadhouse, phones the sheriff to report the murder but accompanying them back to the crime scene, find no body or trace of Mrs. Jass Yeoman. The assumption among the more dim witted of Esmerelda is that Mona has run off with her boyfriend and McGee is trying to make it seem like she was killed, but McGee lucks out when the town sheriff proves to be a good cop who doesn't buy that.
Financing his investigation with cash he removed from Mona's purse before his flight to safety, McGee checks himself into a motel and once again, determines to poke his nose where no one has asked him to poke it. Jass Yeoman drops by to size McGee up and the amateur sleuth concludes that Mona's husband was neither aware nor wanted his wife killed. He visits the college where John Webb taught and meets his sister Isobel, an intellectual who has filled in the missing spaces of her own life by trying to manage her brother's. She's sure he's run off with Mona but when McGee discovers Webb's insulin left behind, they conclude someone wanted it to look like he'd run off.
Once the sheriff turns up lung tissue belonging to Mona Yeoman at the crime scene, Jass Yeoman hires McGee to find out who killed her. The old boy admits to everything else but wanting to kill his wife, plundering her father's estate, conducting shady business deals, facing an IRS audit and fathering illegitimate children over the years. McGee narrowly saves Jass from being stabbed by an assassin and the suspects could be limitless. He tries to comfort Isobel, who's going through the five stages of grief as she realizes someone had her brother murdered. McGee came to town with regrets of his own and as he looks around at modern life, doesn't like what he sees.
Education is something which should be apart from the necessities of earning a living, not a tool therefor. It needs contemplation, fallow periods, the measured and guided study of the history of man's reiteration of the most agonizing question of all: Why? Today the good ones, the ones who want to ask why, find no one around with any interest in answering the question, so they drop out, because theirs is the type of mind which becomes monstrously bored at the trade-school concept. A devoted technician is seldom an educated man. He can be a useful man, a contented man, a busy man. But he has no more sense of the mystery and wonder and paradox of existence than does one of those chickens fattening itself for the mechanical plucking, freezing and packaging.
If Travis McGee had decided that modern living was beyond redemption, he'd be asea and never offer to help those in trouble. If he was only doing it for money, he'd be dead. A Purple Place For Dying starts off with a bang and from there, under different guises and circumstances offers all the things I love about this series: brutal violence that demands justice, hidden money, a woman who helps McGee as much as he helps her. I marvel over how MacDonald shuns trends, tech or pop culture that could date this as a product of the early '60s. The result is a timeless detective mystery. His first-person prose rolls off the page and his dialogue is often magnanimous.
She frowned across the table at me, dark glasses laid aside. "There is something about trying to kill yourself, no matter what. Maybe the ability to feel deeply. I don't know. I feel like a stranger to myself. I have to find out who I am, who I am going to be. I feel--cut loose from everything. And I have this strange little feeling of--some kind of unholy joy. Every once in a while. An electric sparkle, like knowing you're soon to go on holiday. I shouldn't feel like that for no reason. I keep wondering if something is--wrong with my mind."
"I'll make an absurd guess. Maybe you're glad to be alive."
"Not particularly. But I won't try to kill myself again."
This novel did sag in the middle for me. Like a lot of prolific authors, MacDonald was able to crank out so many books by kicking his interior editor off the boat and hitting the throttle. Dialogue runs on in some spots and characters fall into the habit of telling each other things that a more compelling story might've found ways to introduce as clues. But something else MacDonald dials in supremely well is an exciting climax, throwing McGee into a life or death struggle with someone far more desperate than he is and who always seems one step ahead of him. A Purple Place For Dying satisfied in all the ways I hoped this book would, curing my reader's block in the process.
Word count: 75,715 words
March 6, 2016
John D. MacDonald is my latest crime/mystery reading 'crush'.
Once again I'm surprised/amazed at how good some writer turned out to be who for years I never thought anything of. In this MacDonald's case I actually didn't realize that him and Ross MacDonald weren't the same person (because I'm stupid, which has been proven on many occasions here by those with more smarts and less manners than I have). And I remember finding the one Lew Archer book I read as being boring in the same way I've felt after reading Hammett.
JDM is so fucking good though.
I've only read some of his early novels so far, this is my third Travis McGee novel, and I've read a handful of his early standalone novels, but what stands out is how dark most of them have been. But offscreen dark generally--things happen that because so much is left for the imagination there is more effectiveness than if he had tried to 'shock'.
So far though this has been my least favorite of his novels. It's more of a traditional mystery than the first two McGee novels, and it lacks any of the darkness I have been enjoying in his other novels. It's still good, just not as good.
Part of the problem was the pacing of the novel. It takes so long for the investigation part to really get going. And then a lot of the elements of the story just seem to fall into place. McGee doesn't seem so much like an active participant in unraveling the corruption of a small Western city but instead just happens to show up someplace and something will happen.
Partly though I was expecting something more. The previous novel, a pink something or other, had a similar feel for awhile (not really, it wasn't as passive in book 2, but just felt a little too tame, no one seemed like a real villain or something like that), but then it sharply veered into total fuckedupness. I was kind of expecting something like that in this book, but that never happened.
I'm just glad this wasn't the first book I had chosen to read of his.
Next up A Quick Red Fox, which has to be good because I'm sure it will be about an actual fox and all.
Once again I'm surprised/amazed at how good some writer turned out to be who for years I never thought anything of. In this MacDonald's case I actually didn't realize that him and Ross MacDonald weren't the same person (because I'm stupid, which has been proven on many occasions here by those with more smarts and less manners than I have). And I remember finding the one Lew Archer book I read as being boring in the same way I've felt after reading Hammett.
JDM is so fucking good though.
I've only read some of his early novels so far, this is my third Travis McGee novel, and I've read a handful of his early standalone novels, but what stands out is how dark most of them have been. But offscreen dark generally--things happen that because so much is left for the imagination there is more effectiveness than if he had tried to 'shock'.
So far though this has been my least favorite of his novels. It's more of a traditional mystery than the first two McGee novels, and it lacks any of the darkness I have been enjoying in his other novels. It's still good, just not as good.
Part of the problem was the pacing of the novel. It takes so long for the investigation part to really get going. And then a lot of the elements of the story just seem to fall into place. McGee doesn't seem so much like an active participant in unraveling the corruption of a small Western city but instead just happens to show up someplace and something will happen.
Partly though I was expecting something more. The previous novel, a pink something or other, had a similar feel for awhile (not really, it wasn't as passive in book 2, but just felt a little too tame, no one seemed like a real villain or something like that), but then it sharply veered into total fuckedupness. I was kind of expecting something like that in this book, but that never happened.
I'm just glad this wasn't the first book I had chosen to read of his.
Next up A Quick Red Fox, which has to be good because I'm sure it will be about an actual fox and all.
December 10, 2017
James Bond, Thomas Magnum, Jim Rockford and Mike Hammer sit in a bar in Phoenix, discussing whiskey, women, handguns and John D. MacDonald’s 1964 Travis McGee novel A Purple Place for Dying.
Bond: Trav is my kind of gentleman, good with a gun, handy in a fight, and would make a good wing man. But too American though, too much of an individual.
All: Whoa!
Hammer: Easy Commander, you’re sitting at a table with some American men who don’t lose time for queen or country.
Magnum: Right James, all due respect, but that’s what MacDonald is selling, and plenty of buyers, he’s the quintessential American hero – a loner, and his own man, not a cop or a spy, not a government man, hell, not an employee at all.
Rockford: True, all true, McGee is all that but he’s also very much a man of his times, he asks some serious questions. MacDonald’s writing is more than just a whodunit or a shoot ‘em up.
Hammer: Not that there’s anything wrong with a shoot ‘em up.
Bond: What do you blokes make of this entry away from Travis’ Florida setting? MacDonald has him out in the American southwest, solving a murder and trying not to get killed himself.
Magnum: No all action is in Florida. McGee only works when he is out of money and that’s where we find him as this begins, taking a potential job that then gets sour. Besides, what a better setting for an American hero than in the west.
Bond: True. McGee is also a romantic hero in the classic sense, and MacDonald makes several references and allusions to knights saving damsels and slaying dragons, allegorically speaking.
Rockford: MacDonald also explores themes of family, particularly the wild and illegitimate offspring of robber baron type men of industry, especially some big fish in a little pond.
Hammer: That’s right, family can be a tough thing, MacDonald was challenging some ideas about family dynamics, particularly in a loosely connected dynasty, where an alpha male goes rogue and takes what he wants for decades, victims be damned!
JR Ewing: Evening gents, this sit taken?
Bond: Trav is my kind of gentleman, good with a gun, handy in a fight, and would make a good wing man. But too American though, too much of an individual.
All: Whoa!
Hammer: Easy Commander, you’re sitting at a table with some American men who don’t lose time for queen or country.
Magnum: Right James, all due respect, but that’s what MacDonald is selling, and plenty of buyers, he’s the quintessential American hero – a loner, and his own man, not a cop or a spy, not a government man, hell, not an employee at all.
Rockford: True, all true, McGee is all that but he’s also very much a man of his times, he asks some serious questions. MacDonald’s writing is more than just a whodunit or a shoot ‘em up.
Hammer: Not that there’s anything wrong with a shoot ‘em up.
Bond: What do you blokes make of this entry away from Travis’ Florida setting? MacDonald has him out in the American southwest, solving a murder and trying not to get killed himself.
Magnum: No all action is in Florida. McGee only works when he is out of money and that’s where we find him as this begins, taking a potential job that then gets sour. Besides, what a better setting for an American hero than in the west.
Bond: True. McGee is also a romantic hero in the classic sense, and MacDonald makes several references and allusions to knights saving damsels and slaying dragons, allegorically speaking.
Rockford: MacDonald also explores themes of family, particularly the wild and illegitimate offspring of robber baron type men of industry, especially some big fish in a little pond.
Hammer: That’s right, family can be a tough thing, MacDonald was challenging some ideas about family dynamics, particularly in a loosely connected dynasty, where an alpha male goes rogue and takes what he wants for decades, victims be damned!
JR Ewing: Evening gents, this sit taken?
November 3, 2017
"The man who believes himself free of any taint of madness is a damned liar."
- John D. MacDonald, A Purple Place for Dying
John D. MacDonald's 3rd book in his Travis McGee series. This one takes place largely in Southwest Desert. Along with his first two novels The Deep Blue Good-By (1964) and Nightmare in Pink (1964), A Purple Place in Dying was also published in 1964. Actually, all three of his first books were published in a 3-month period. Sometimes you space out your publications, and sometimes you cluster bomb that shit.
Essentially, this is a novel where McGee is hired to investigate the financial dealings of a woman's estranged husband, but before he can be hired his potential boss gets killed. McGee sets out trying to figure out who shot Mona (the wife). Not because he's getting paid to, and not because he even liked her. He's trying to figure out who did it, because it pissed him off. In many ways, that is almost one facet in all of the McGee novels.
- John D. MacDonald, A Purple Place for Dying
John D. MacDonald's 3rd book in his Travis McGee series. This one takes place largely in Southwest Desert. Along with his first two novels The Deep Blue Good-By (1964) and Nightmare in Pink (1964), A Purple Place in Dying was also published in 1964. Actually, all three of his first books were published in a 3-month period. Sometimes you space out your publications, and sometimes you cluster bomb that shit.
Essentially, this is a novel where McGee is hired to investigate the financial dealings of a woman's estranged husband, but before he can be hired his potential boss gets killed. McGee sets out trying to figure out who shot Mona (the wife). Not because he's getting paid to, and not because he even liked her. He's trying to figure out who did it, because it pissed him off. In many ways, that is almost one facet in all of the McGee novels.
December 21, 2016
Don't read a Travis McGee mystery for its low opinion of the half of the world's population that aren't male, instead savor the crisp prose style that hasn't aged a day in over fifty years and delight in the precedent skeins of acerbic misanthropy. Plus there is embezzlement, blackmail, adultery and death by rock slide. A quick read as fine as a cerveza with your toes in the sand.
May 25, 2013
Just to make sure that readers of this review understand up front that Travis McGee is my best guy ever. Please consider that my only disclaimer. Been in love with Travis since I first met him in the early 1970's.
First Edition Cover and Probably One I Read
This review is based, in part, on comments made on a blog created by D. R. Martin called Travis McGee and Me which I read and comment on regularly. All fans of John D. MacDonald and Travis should check it out. But a cautionary note, there are spoilers scattered throughout.
I took slight issue with a comment on the blog “His ladies were usually damsels in distress which distresses the feminists to no end.” It’s my opinion that Travis respects woman to no end. Of course, Travis is not a perfect man and he recognizes that but who is a perfect human being?
It's my opinion that most feminists, myself included, find no problem with the interaction Travis has with women, as stated in the blog, the “damsels in distress.” Damsels, the word itself in my mind, is antiquated. Travis, as I recall, probably interacts with men in distress with equal fervor in the 21 adventures from The Deep Blue Goodbye to The Silver Lonely Rain.
With more time, I could check through D. R.’s blog to determine just who was in distress, i.e. how many women vs men call upon Travis for his ‘salvage’ expertise.
A woman plays a prominent place in most every book but nothing surprising about that since women play a significant role in most books of every genre, some, of course, more than others. And why not, since they're about one-half the world population?
However, with …Purple… being the third book in the series,(all written from 1974 to 1984) author John D. MacDonald goes into greater depth as to how Travis relates to and treats women and his own personal philosophy of life and living it. From time to time in each book, Travis gives the reader a clue, some insight as to his personal philosophy.
Travis and his wiry hair...self described
In the words of Travis himself from A Purple Place for Dying:
Finding Travis and Isobel (Iz) are in a small cold cave at night huddled together trying to warm themselves and nature simply took its course. Iz, being reserved, frightened and lacking any self-confidence whatsoever is quite afraid of her own emotions.
“I patted her shoulder and said, ‘Iz, if we get. If I get you out of this. If you’re ever in my arms again. Just one word will do it. Every time. No. that’s all you have to say. No. And it stops. So don’t say it as a nervous habit. Say it when you mean it. No. there’s nothing wrong with my hearing.’
She thought it over. ‘But I always thought…that men…’
‘The ravening Beast?’“ Travis asked.
Then Iz, stating how she’s changed from the first time she met Travis says “You let me hang myself with my own rope. Philanthropy, you wretch?”
Travis thinking and commenting on Why?
“Education is something which should be apart from the necessities of earning a living, not a tool therefor. It needs contemplation, fallow periods, the measure and guided study of the history of man’s reiteration of the most agonizing question of all: Why? Today the good ones, the ones who want to ask why, find no one around with any interest in answering the question, so they drop out, because theirs is the type of mind which becomes monstrously bored at the trade-school concept. A devoted technical is seldom an education man. He can be a useful man, a contented man, a busy man. But he has no more sense of the mystery and wonder and paradox of existence than does one of those chickens fattening itself for the mechanical plucking, freezing and packaging.”
Travis on love in life
“She sighed and started at me, then bent back to her scrubbing. These were our sad ghost, and they made life sweeter somehow by keeping us aware of what a precarious gift it is. And when life seems sweet, love is exaltation.”
Forgiving one's self
“It would one kind of penance. And there are never enough kinds. Not for him. Not for me. And certainly not for you, my friend.”
*****
With regard to the titles, I’m making note of where they come from in each novel, with …Purple… referring to the period of time when darkness relinquishes to the sun's rising. “The grey of that light and the reddish tone of the huge rocks made of it a purple world. This was the foolish end of all the foolish things, in a purple place for dying. I was too far from the bright water and the bright boats.” Travis is, of course, speaking of Slip-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Travis and Busted Flush Dust Jacket Which Hangs Over My Monitor on Wall
Lastly, another small gem from JDM through the voice of Travis: “People who censor books are usually illiterate.”
Travis McGee, and I know I repeat myself, is my kind of man and has been since he captured my heart in the late ‘60’s.
First Edition Cover and Probably One I Read
This review is based, in part, on comments made on a blog created by D. R. Martin called Travis McGee and Me which I read and comment on regularly. All fans of John D. MacDonald and Travis should check it out. But a cautionary note, there are spoilers scattered throughout.
I took slight issue with a comment on the blog “His ladies were usually damsels in distress which distresses the feminists to no end.” It’s my opinion that Travis respects woman to no end. Of course, Travis is not a perfect man and he recognizes that but who is a perfect human being?
It's my opinion that most feminists, myself included, find no problem with the interaction Travis has with women, as stated in the blog, the “damsels in distress.” Damsels, the word itself in my mind, is antiquated. Travis, as I recall, probably interacts with men in distress with equal fervor in the 21 adventures from The Deep Blue Goodbye to The Silver Lonely Rain.
With more time, I could check through D. R.’s blog to determine just who was in distress, i.e. how many women vs men call upon Travis for his ‘salvage’ expertise.
A woman plays a prominent place in most every book but nothing surprising about that since women play a significant role in most books of every genre, some, of course, more than others. And why not, since they're about one-half the world population?
However, with …Purple… being the third book in the series,(all written from 1974 to 1984) author John D. MacDonald goes into greater depth as to how Travis relates to and treats women and his own personal philosophy of life and living it. From time to time in each book, Travis gives the reader a clue, some insight as to his personal philosophy.
Travis and his wiry hair...self described
In the words of Travis himself from A Purple Place for Dying:
Finding Travis and Isobel (Iz) are in a small cold cave at night huddled together trying to warm themselves and nature simply took its course. Iz, being reserved, frightened and lacking any self-confidence whatsoever is quite afraid of her own emotions.
“I patted her shoulder and said, ‘Iz, if we get. If I get you out of this. If you’re ever in my arms again. Just one word will do it. Every time. No. that’s all you have to say. No. And it stops. So don’t say it as a nervous habit. Say it when you mean it. No. there’s nothing wrong with my hearing.’
She thought it over. ‘But I always thought…that men…’
‘The ravening Beast?’“ Travis asked.
Then Iz, stating how she’s changed from the first time she met Travis says “You let me hang myself with my own rope. Philanthropy, you wretch?”
Travis thinking and commenting on Why?
“Education is something which should be apart from the necessities of earning a living, not a tool therefor. It needs contemplation, fallow periods, the measure and guided study of the history of man’s reiteration of the most agonizing question of all: Why? Today the good ones, the ones who want to ask why, find no one around with any interest in answering the question, so they drop out, because theirs is the type of mind which becomes monstrously bored at the trade-school concept. A devoted technical is seldom an education man. He can be a useful man, a contented man, a busy man. But he has no more sense of the mystery and wonder and paradox of existence than does one of those chickens fattening itself for the mechanical plucking, freezing and packaging.”
Travis on love in life
“She sighed and started at me, then bent back to her scrubbing. These were our sad ghost, and they made life sweeter somehow by keeping us aware of what a precarious gift it is. And when life seems sweet, love is exaltation.”
Forgiving one's self
“It would one kind of penance. And there are never enough kinds. Not for him. Not for me. And certainly not for you, my friend.”
*****
With regard to the titles, I’m making note of where they come from in each novel, with …Purple… referring to the period of time when darkness relinquishes to the sun's rising. “The grey of that light and the reddish tone of the huge rocks made of it a purple world. This was the foolish end of all the foolish things, in a purple place for dying. I was too far from the bright water and the bright boats.” Travis is, of course, speaking of Slip-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Travis and Busted Flush Dust Jacket Which Hangs Over My Monitor on Wall
Lastly, another small gem from JDM through the voice of Travis: “People who censor books are usually illiterate.”
Travis McGee, and I know I repeat myself, is my kind of man and has been since he captured my heart in the late ‘60’s.
February 14, 2025
A sniper's bullet ends the life of a young woman as Travis McGee stands feet away. The irony is that she had just hired McGee to retrieve money stolen from her inheritance, and she suspects it is her much older husband who did it. Motive? Check.
Unfortunately, when he goes to retrieve the local law enforcement, he returns to find the body missing. Plus, the older husband seems genuinely upset about the prospect of his young trophy wife being murdered. He doesn't seem like the murdering type. Someone is playing a deadly game of deception and murder, and McGee is stuck in the middle.
In John D. McDonald's third novel featuring his beach-bum detective, "A Purple Place For Dying", McGee is forced to figure out a complicated series of whodunnits, as the body count starts to mount.
McDonald's talent for suspense-building and mystery-solving is on fine display in this one. I'm fairly sure that I've found my new favorite mystery writer.
Unfortunately, when he goes to retrieve the local law enforcement, he returns to find the body missing. Plus, the older husband seems genuinely upset about the prospect of his young trophy wife being murdered. He doesn't seem like the murdering type. Someone is playing a deadly game of deception and murder, and McGee is stuck in the middle.
In John D. McDonald's third novel featuring his beach-bum detective, "A Purple Place For Dying", McGee is forced to figure out a complicated series of whodunnits, as the body count starts to mount.
McDonald's talent for suspense-building and mystery-solving is on fine display in this one. I'm fairly sure that I've found my new favorite mystery writer.
April 22, 2019
A quite enjoyable 4.5-stars, with several unexpected twists.
As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.
An exquisite western setting, beautifully rendered by MacDonald, which works far better than the New York City of A Nightmare in Pink. The introduction by Lee Child is worth reading as well.
I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy this, after 30 pages or so, but it surprised me. MacDonald's spare and open prose, his character and place descriptions, his rendition of scenes, all seem fresh and new in every book. I mentioned before, his prose is almost magical, as if he bypasses the words completely, and transfers the images directly to your mind.
The sun was not up. The grey of that light and the reddish tone of the huge rocks made of it a purple world. I felt an inexplicable depression. This was the foolish end of all the foolish things, in a purple place for dying.
Full size image here
Quotes and notes:
MacDonald, even in his mediocre books, continues to find poetry and philosophy in himself. Wonderful.
So she was a big creamy bitch standing beside me in her tailored tight pants, and suddenly she was fallen cooling meat, and it was too damned fast. I had seen dead women. I had seen sudden expected death, and sudden unexpected death, but never before the sudden and unexpected death of a handsome woman. It struck deeper than I would have guessed it could. There was more to it than the fact of a horrid waste. I couldn't identify what there was about it that had rocked me so, and kept rocking me. Somehow it was identified with my own mortality, my own inevitable day to die. She had gone far past childhood, yet when she was down, she was Little Girl smashed, and closer to my heart dead than alive.
-
"Cronkie". That is a cop word. It means someone who has been in trouble, is presently in trouble, or is about to be in trouble--either as victim or aggressor. A wise cop can pick them out of heavy pedestrian traffic flow, because they don't quite fit.
-
We looked odd in the mirror, all the rawboned height of McGee standing next to and slightly behind the pale perfection of the naked girl, so small in her bare feet, her frank breasts revealed, and, nested into the smoothness of her thighs, the sooty- soft-dark cornerstone to the soft and tender arch of hips. Her hair was a clotted tangle, half masking one eye. Smirking at her mirror image I put my lips close to her ear and said, "See the pretty girl? See the pretty pretty girl?"
-
As the windows were beginning to get that pale look I put the chain on the door, brushed my teeth and kissed her on the forehead and went to bed. I was no longer irritated with her. I felt proud and pleased about her. Samaritan McGee, savior of doomed womanhood. I had a curious feeling of ownership. Now you belong to me, dear girl, and damn foolishness will not be countenanced in the future. You hear?
-
She came to the blanket and knelt and rolled back on her half, and made on my left forearm a Japanese pillow for the soaked nape of her neck. She made a small sound of contentment and lay there in a spill of moonlight that turned the water droplets on her body to a mercury gleaming.
-
We stayed there three days and nights. Clothes were clumsy devices you put on to walk down the road to eat. We ate like barracudas. We slept twined in the deep innocence of the slumber you remember from childhood. We could look at each other and start laughing for no reason. Roughhouse could turn to passion, to sweetness, to comedy, to passion again.
-
Maybe, before we parted, I would tell her -or try to tell her- how she, in her own way, had mended me. A different fellow had gone out there to Esmerelda, with the bad nerves and the flying twitches and the guilts and remorses and the feeling of being savagely and forever alone. No guilts this time. Not with this one. Remorse is the ultimate in self-abuse.
-
Full size image here
The sun was not up. The grey of that light and the reddish tone of the huge rocks made of it a purple world. I felt an inexplicable depression. This was the foolish end of all the foolish things, in a purple place for dying. I was too far from the bright water and the bright boats. My luck was gone.
Bonus. From the 1970 "Darker Than Amber" movie starring Rod Taylor, pictures of the producers' ideas of McGee's "The Busted Flush":
Full size image here
Full size image here
Full size image here
And finally, two great blogs about John D. MacDonald, McGee and the rumoured-never-written novel where McGee dies"...
The Birth of Travis McGee (fascinating)
http://thetrapofsolidgold.blogspot.co...
"Black Border for McGee" (rumours surrounding a final book, never published)
http://thetrapofsolidgold.blogspot.co...
.
As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.
An exquisite western setting, beautifully rendered by MacDonald, which works far better than the New York City of A Nightmare in Pink. The introduction by Lee Child is worth reading as well.
I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy this, after 30 pages or so, but it surprised me. MacDonald's spare and open prose, his character and place descriptions, his rendition of scenes, all seem fresh and new in every book. I mentioned before, his prose is almost magical, as if he bypasses the words completely, and transfers the images directly to your mind.
The sun was not up. The grey of that light and the reddish tone of the huge rocks made of it a purple world. I felt an inexplicable depression. This was the foolish end of all the foolish things, in a purple place for dying.
Full size image here
Quotes and notes:
MacDonald, even in his mediocre books, continues to find poetry and philosophy in himself. Wonderful.
So she was a big creamy bitch standing beside me in her tailored tight pants, and suddenly she was fallen cooling meat, and it was too damned fast. I had seen dead women. I had seen sudden expected death, and sudden unexpected death, but never before the sudden and unexpected death of a handsome woman. It struck deeper than I would have guessed it could. There was more to it than the fact of a horrid waste. I couldn't identify what there was about it that had rocked me so, and kept rocking me. Somehow it was identified with my own mortality, my own inevitable day to die. She had gone far past childhood, yet when she was down, she was Little Girl smashed, and closer to my heart dead than alive.
-
"Cronkie". That is a cop word. It means someone who has been in trouble, is presently in trouble, or is about to be in trouble--either as victim or aggressor. A wise cop can pick them out of heavy pedestrian traffic flow, because they don't quite fit.
-
We looked odd in the mirror, all the rawboned height of McGee standing next to and slightly behind the pale perfection of the naked girl, so small in her bare feet, her frank breasts revealed, and, nested into the smoothness of her thighs, the sooty- soft-dark cornerstone to the soft and tender arch of hips. Her hair was a clotted tangle, half masking one eye. Smirking at her mirror image I put my lips close to her ear and said, "See the pretty girl? See the pretty pretty girl?"
-
As the windows were beginning to get that pale look I put the chain on the door, brushed my teeth and kissed her on the forehead and went to bed. I was no longer irritated with her. I felt proud and pleased about her. Samaritan McGee, savior of doomed womanhood. I had a curious feeling of ownership. Now you belong to me, dear girl, and damn foolishness will not be countenanced in the future. You hear?
-
She came to the blanket and knelt and rolled back on her half, and made on my left forearm a Japanese pillow for the soaked nape of her neck. She made a small sound of contentment and lay there in a spill of moonlight that turned the water droplets on her body to a mercury gleaming.
-
We stayed there three days and nights. Clothes were clumsy devices you put on to walk down the road to eat. We ate like barracudas. We slept twined in the deep innocence of the slumber you remember from childhood. We could look at each other and start laughing for no reason. Roughhouse could turn to passion, to sweetness, to comedy, to passion again.
-
Maybe, before we parted, I would tell her -or try to tell her- how she, in her own way, had mended me. A different fellow had gone out there to Esmerelda, with the bad nerves and the flying twitches and the guilts and remorses and the feeling of being savagely and forever alone. No guilts this time. Not with this one. Remorse is the ultimate in self-abuse.
-
Full size image here
The sun was not up. The grey of that light and the reddish tone of the huge rocks made of it a purple world. I felt an inexplicable depression. This was the foolish end of all the foolish things, in a purple place for dying. I was too far from the bright water and the bright boats. My luck was gone.
Bonus. From the 1970 "Darker Than Amber" movie starring Rod Taylor, pictures of the producers' ideas of McGee's "The Busted Flush":
Full size image here
Full size image here
Full size image here
And finally, two great blogs about John D. MacDonald, McGee and the rumoured-never-written novel where McGee dies"...
The Birth of Travis McGee (fascinating)
http://thetrapofsolidgold.blogspot.co...
"Black Border for McGee" (rumours surrounding a final book, never published)
http://thetrapofsolidgold.blogspot.co...
.
December 6, 2019
[7/10]
I work when the money gets low. Otherwise I enjoy my retirement, Mrs. Yeoman. I’m taking it in installments, while I’m young enough to enjoy it. I am commonly known as a beach bum. I live on a houseboat. I live as well as I want to live, but sometimes I have to go to work. Reluctantly.
Money IS low, so Travis McGee goes to the quasi-fictional Esmerelda County in Arizona or Nevada to improve his dwindling fortunes. And because he is Travis McGee, his employer must be a gorgeous woman. Mrs Yeoman is a trophy wife who wants a divorce from her very rich and very influential husband, a man who apparently also tricked her out of her huge inheritance. Unfortunately for Travis, his potential employer gets killed right under his eyes, just as they were negotiating the contract in a remote mountain lodge. As the goons set after him by the husband try to run him out of town, Travis decides that he doesn’t like to be pushed around and that a beautiful object of desire should not be obliterated with such nonchalance. He is now becoming the hunter instead of the prey.
Published in thelate seventies 1964, this third McGee outing encapsulates for me the best and the worst of the period in terms of crime fiction. Like Elmore Leonard, John D MacDonald writes tight, action intense, carefully plotted capers. He has a strong lead in Travis, a tough man with a good education and a leisurely approach to the pleasures of life. MacDonald is also very good with the witty dialogue, the local colour and the occasional social commentary, as displayed here with a rant against production line education institutes, places where you can learn a craft, but little else useful for later in life.
A devoted technician is seldom an educated man. He can be a useful man, a contended man, a busy man. But he has no more sense of the mystery and wonder and paradox of existence than does one of those chickens fattening itself for the mechanical plucking, freezing and packaging.
Where the series falls short, so far, is in the cringe-worthy sexual predator attitude Travis deploys towards all the women encountered in the course of his investigations. He literally strips them naked with his eyes and speculates at length about their potential talents in the sack. In is own eyes, Travis is God’s greatest gift to the gentle sex, who would never need a psychiatrist once he gets his hands on them. Even worse, these damsels turn into simpering sex slaves once Travis gets his way with them, which he has regularly done so far in the series:
Don’t get alarmed, dear. [...] I will cry my eyes out. I’ll ache for you. But I will know it has to be.
In this wish fulfillment fantasy, the girl would normally set Travis free at the end of one episode, so he can hunt for new gazelles in the next book. [insert gag reflex here]
Despite this apparent shortcoming (as a teenage reader I would have probably wolfed these books down), I plan to continue with the series, since other reviewers have mentioned that it gets better, once you get over books 2 and 3.
I did like a one line resume of the current episode Travis inserted towards the end of the novel, proof MacDonald has the skills to write a lot better:
A violent and terrible slapstick
I work when the money gets low. Otherwise I enjoy my retirement, Mrs. Yeoman. I’m taking it in installments, while I’m young enough to enjoy it. I am commonly known as a beach bum. I live on a houseboat. I live as well as I want to live, but sometimes I have to go to work. Reluctantly.
Money IS low, so Travis McGee goes to the quasi-fictional Esmerelda County in Arizona or Nevada to improve his dwindling fortunes. And because he is Travis McGee, his employer must be a gorgeous woman. Mrs Yeoman is a trophy wife who wants a divorce from her very rich and very influential husband, a man who apparently also tricked her out of her huge inheritance. Unfortunately for Travis, his potential employer gets killed right under his eyes, just as they were negotiating the contract in a remote mountain lodge. As the goons set after him by the husband try to run him out of town, Travis decides that he doesn’t like to be pushed around and that a beautiful object of desire should not be obliterated with such nonchalance. He is now becoming the hunter instead of the prey.
Published in the
A devoted technician is seldom an educated man. He can be a useful man, a contended man, a busy man. But he has no more sense of the mystery and wonder and paradox of existence than does one of those chickens fattening itself for the mechanical plucking, freezing and packaging.
Where the series falls short, so far, is in the cringe-worthy sexual predator attitude Travis deploys towards all the women encountered in the course of his investigations. He literally strips them naked with his eyes and speculates at length about their potential talents in the sack. In is own eyes, Travis is God’s greatest gift to the gentle sex, who would never need a psychiatrist once he gets his hands on them. Even worse, these damsels turn into simpering sex slaves once Travis gets his way with them, which he has regularly done so far in the series:
Don’t get alarmed, dear. [...] I will cry my eyes out. I’ll ache for you. But I will know it has to be.
In this wish fulfillment fantasy, the girl would normally set Travis free at the end of one episode, so he can hunt for new gazelles in the next book. [insert gag reflex here]
Despite this apparent shortcoming (as a teenage reader I would have probably wolfed these books down), I plan to continue with the series, since other reviewers have mentioned that it gets better, once you get over books 2 and 3.
I did like a one line resume of the current episode Travis inserted towards the end of the novel, proof MacDonald has the skills to write a lot better:
A violent and terrible slapstick
September 24, 2024
MacDonald really cranked up the mystery-thriller aspect in A Purple Place for Dying to good effect, although the ending, e.g., McGee's helping women achieve sexual liberation, put a damper on the party for me. This starts with Trav flying out to the Southwest USA (Nevada?) on the behalf of an old friend. This old friend knows Mona Fox Yeoman, and Mona needs a 'fixer' just like Trav; yet, McGee has no real clue of what the deal is. As Mona included a round trip ticket for 'consultation', however, Travis decides to check it out; his bank account has, alas, run a little low.
Mona picks up Travis from the airport and takes him to an old cabin up in the hills above town and then and only then lays out the problem. Mona's father passed away when she was a young teen, but left her a substantial trust fund, administered by his best buddy Jass. Jass proceeded to give her an allowance and let her be, but eventually she got into trouble in Paris. Jass helped her out, and on the way home, he proposed and she accepted. Mona had been married to Jass for several years, but now she has a new flame, a dorky professor at a local college. She wants to get her hands on the trust fund set up by her father, divorce Jess, and start a new life. Unfortunately, Jass said no. Futher, Jass cut off her allowance. She hired a lawyer to sort it out, but the details of the trust are murky to say the least. So, Travis seems to be her last hope.
After laying all this out, the two take a stroll around the cabin, and someone, a sniper, takes Mona out. Travis eventually makes his way back to civilization, gets the cops involved, but when they go to the scene of the crime, Mona's body is gone, as is all evidence she and Travis were even at the cabin. The sheriff concludes that Mona simply ran away with her new flame, and Travis facilitated the scheme. Well, Trav is no one's patsy, and he knows what he saw. Who would want to take Mona out? Therein lies a mystery that Trav simply cannot turn away from...
Trav's investigation turns up lots of sordid deeds, but I will say no more to avoid spoilers. MacDonald toned down Trav's musings on the world to some degree here to good effect, but also created a bigger mystery involving Mona and her husband Good stuff and thrilling, as a thriller should be. Jeez, though, how many women can Trav help liberate sexually? It seems at least a few every installment. 3.5 stars, rounding up!
Mona picks up Travis from the airport and takes him to an old cabin up in the hills above town and then and only then lays out the problem. Mona's father passed away when she was a young teen, but left her a substantial trust fund, administered by his best buddy Jass. Jass proceeded to give her an allowance and let her be, but eventually she got into trouble in Paris. Jass helped her out, and on the way home, he proposed and she accepted. Mona had been married to Jass for several years, but now she has a new flame, a dorky professor at a local college. She wants to get her hands on the trust fund set up by her father, divorce Jess, and start a new life. Unfortunately, Jass said no. Futher, Jass cut off her allowance. She hired a lawyer to sort it out, but the details of the trust are murky to say the least. So, Travis seems to be her last hope.
After laying all this out, the two take a stroll around the cabin, and someone, a sniper, takes Mona out. Travis eventually makes his way back to civilization, gets the cops involved, but when they go to the scene of the crime, Mona's body is gone, as is all evidence she and Travis were even at the cabin. The sheriff concludes that Mona simply ran away with her new flame, and Travis facilitated the scheme. Well, Trav is no one's patsy, and he knows what he saw. Who would want to take Mona out? Therein lies a mystery that Trav simply cannot turn away from...
Trav's investigation turns up lots of sordid deeds, but I will say no more to avoid spoilers. MacDonald toned down Trav's musings on the world to some degree here to good effect, but also created a bigger mystery involving Mona and her husband Good stuff and thrilling, as a thriller should be. Jeez, though, how many women can Trav help liberate sexually? It seems at least a few every installment. 3.5 stars, rounding up!
May 28, 2020
This is a tale of murder and despair in the enchanted hills of the Southwest. Travis McGee is almost like a fish out of water in this world. Not only is he far from his beloved marina in Florida, but this is a county ruled by a feudal oligarchy and he isn’t quite one of the good old boys in this neck of the woods. At one point, he muses that “This was the foolish end of all foolish things, in a purple place for dying. I was too far from the bright water and the bright boats.” This is also one of the best, most well-written, of the twenty-one Travis McGee novels.
It is more of a classic hardboiled murder mystery than most of the McGee novels. This one involves a woman named Mona Yeoman with eyes that “were the beautiful blue of robins’ eggs, and had just about as much expression.” She didn’t seem to fit this rough, isolated country. “She was a big ripe-bodied blonde of about thirty.” She was arrogant, in control. “She would have looked more at home on Park Avenue and Fifty-Something,” but here “she strode up the gravel road in six-stitch boots, twill trousers, a tweed hacking coat, a sand-pale cowgirl hat.” “She was destined to walk ahead with most of the world following in single file.” “She had a lot of vitality, a lot of gloss and bounce and directed energy.” She was married to an older gentleman, the richest man in the county, who owned every lawyer, every banker, and every judge in the county, and she told McGee that she had a boyfriend, a poor college professor, and she wanted him to find some way out of her marriage and he would get half the settlement. She was tired of being a captive princess, but moments later, there was a “wet hole punched high in her spine, through the silk blouse, dead center, about two inches below where her neck joined her good shoulders.”
McGee is now somehow mixed up in something he didn’t bargain for and no one seems to want him hanging around, not the sheriff, and not the businessmen. No one buys his story. Not much. What with Mona and the boyfriend having been seen at the airport that afternoon, catching a flight out.
This is one terrific novel that is more focused and tight than most McGee novels are. There doesn’t seem to be any ranging off into banter about unconnected things here. There are no wasted words or wasted actions. It’s a mystery and McGee is going to solve it or die trying. The mood and atmosphere of this novel is captured by the dry harsh climate of the Southwest so different from McGee’s native world in Florida.
It is more of a classic hardboiled murder mystery than most of the McGee novels. This one involves a woman named Mona Yeoman with eyes that “were the beautiful blue of robins’ eggs, and had just about as much expression.” She didn’t seem to fit this rough, isolated country. “She was a big ripe-bodied blonde of about thirty.” She was arrogant, in control. “She would have looked more at home on Park Avenue and Fifty-Something,” but here “she strode up the gravel road in six-stitch boots, twill trousers, a tweed hacking coat, a sand-pale cowgirl hat.” “She was destined to walk ahead with most of the world following in single file.” “She had a lot of vitality, a lot of gloss and bounce and directed energy.” She was married to an older gentleman, the richest man in the county, who owned every lawyer, every banker, and every judge in the county, and she told McGee that she had a boyfriend, a poor college professor, and she wanted him to find some way out of her marriage and he would get half the settlement. She was tired of being a captive princess, but moments later, there was a “wet hole punched high in her spine, through the silk blouse, dead center, about two inches below where her neck joined her good shoulders.”
McGee is now somehow mixed up in something he didn’t bargain for and no one seems to want him hanging around, not the sheriff, and not the businessmen. No one buys his story. Not much. What with Mona and the boyfriend having been seen at the airport that afternoon, catching a flight out.
This is one terrific novel that is more focused and tight than most McGee novels are. There doesn’t seem to be any ranging off into banter about unconnected things here. There are no wasted words or wasted actions. It’s a mystery and McGee is going to solve it or die trying. The mood and atmosphere of this novel is captured by the dry harsh climate of the Southwest so different from McGee’s native world in Florida.
August 31, 2020
I really enjoyed the first Travis McGee novel – it was a quick, easy P.I. novel that enabled me to see why so many modern mystery writers trace John D. MacDonald as their inspiration. This one, however, while still displaying plenty of skill and craft, kind of threw me because of an oddly persistent thread of misogyny that kept pulling me out of the story.
I'm not remotely qualified to dissect sexism inside a novel, and of course this one was written sometime around 1965, so one might expect a few obvious issues regardless. Nonetheless I was constantly thrown by a particular piece of the narrative that just felt so off that it seriously hampered my ability to enjoy the book. I mention it here because I think it might do so for lots of other readers as well.
Without introducing spoilers, we have in A Purple Place for Dying a client who's a young-ish woman seeking to run out on her much older husband to live with a young college professor instead and wants Travis McGee's help. Of course, things go horribly wrong, and, well, mystery ensues.
Where the story goes sour for me is that constantly – and I mean constantly – throughout the book, just about every character blames the client for wanting to leave her much older husband and notes how soon enough she'll come back to him and – after a sound beating from him – everything will be fine. It's this beating that keeps getting mentioned as being completely normal; she'll run back to her husband, he'll beat her, and then forgive her so that everyone will be happy again. The sheer number of characters of all types and genders who say this is so eerily consistent that at one point I was wondering if it was some kind of weird plot device – like everyone's saying this for some particular reason. But no, that's just the moral universe in which the story takes place.
I don't know if this completely casual notion of wife-beating being posed as a justified action was actually that prevalent in the 1960's or whether MacDonald just had a particularly heinous view of domestic violence, but the repetition of this theme made it hard to get into the story.
Why three stars then instead of some angrier number? I guess because I don't know to what degree my reaction to this one narrative element was coming from serious problems in the book or whether I was reading in some degree of those problems. This is an old-school P.I. novel. Maybe others will more easily see past the issue. For myself, given the rest of the storytelling is so strong, I'm inclined to give Travis McGee one more shot before I give up on him.
I'm not remotely qualified to dissect sexism inside a novel, and of course this one was written sometime around 1965, so one might expect a few obvious issues regardless. Nonetheless I was constantly thrown by a particular piece of the narrative that just felt so off that it seriously hampered my ability to enjoy the book. I mention it here because I think it might do so for lots of other readers as well.
Without introducing spoilers, we have in A Purple Place for Dying a client who's a young-ish woman seeking to run out on her much older husband to live with a young college professor instead and wants Travis McGee's help. Of course, things go horribly wrong, and, well, mystery ensues.
Where the story goes sour for me is that constantly – and I mean constantly – throughout the book, just about every character blames the client for wanting to leave her much older husband and notes how soon enough she'll come back to him and – after a sound beating from him – everything will be fine. It's this beating that keeps getting mentioned as being completely normal; she'll run back to her husband, he'll beat her, and then forgive her so that everyone will be happy again. The sheer number of characters of all types and genders who say this is so eerily consistent that at one point I was wondering if it was some kind of weird plot device – like everyone's saying this for some particular reason. But no, that's just the moral universe in which the story takes place.
I don't know if this completely casual notion of wife-beating being posed as a justified action was actually that prevalent in the 1960's or whether MacDonald just had a particularly heinous view of domestic violence, but the repetition of this theme made it hard to get into the story.
Why three stars then instead of some angrier number? I guess because I don't know to what degree my reaction to this one narrative element was coming from serious problems in the book or whether I was reading in some degree of those problems. This is an old-school P.I. novel. Maybe others will more easily see past the issue. For myself, given the rest of the storytelling is so strong, I'm inclined to give Travis McGee one more shot before I give up on him.
March 20, 2021
Mid-20th Century North American Crime/Mystery
1964 - 2nd Read You know all those great TV westerns like The Big Valley, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Wanted: Dead or Alive, etc., during which 99.99% of the time you believed every character knew all they needed to know about the wild west, even when the stories veered toward the fantastic, like in the show actually titled Wild, Wild West. Travis is part of the .01% that seemed out of place. Yes, the time frame is about 100 years later than Bonanza, but MacDonald describes a cabin we've all seen, and a cave, and how to handle a rattler in a cave, and the best gun to use for distance, etc. But Trav lives on a boat in Ft. Lauderdale...
HOOK - 3 stars: I was never convinced as to the real reason Travis is in Esmerelda, but this book does get off to a roaring start with a rather shocking death (it's quick, then over) and Travis is instantly on the run (again, not really sure why...)
PACE - 3 stars: A fast read but rather large font: the author doesn't waste words...except for the sex lecture.
PLOT/CRIME 2: Mona and her newest lover disappear: Trav knows Mona is dead, but he isn't sure about the professor/lover. The professor's death is rather original, but the story of Mona's husband and his allowance that he'll just give her another good trashing to put her in her place when she returns is very distasteful, and unbelievable.
CAST - 1 star: Didn't believe Trav knew all this stuff. Didn't believe the lovely, fabulous Mona would fall for a professor, didn't believe the fussy, uptight sister of the professor would...oops better stop. I didn't believe motivations. And I don't even think MacDonald/Trav knew enough about land deals and conglomerations to solve a murder or 2 here. I do like Trav, but oh he doesn't mind that Mona gets a good thrashing every now and then from her husband. Then, there is his much-too-long and repetitive sermon to a lady about how when a lady says no, real men back away. But then...guess what???
ATMOSPHERE - 2 stars: I did like how the Native American culture, most of the time, is portrayed, as they really look out for each other and are very leery (and should have been more so) of strangers. And there's a few CEOs who appear clueless. But I felt like I've seen these scenes (snake in a cave, rocks dropped on heads and sounding like exploding melons) too many times. And please, authors, don't give me this sudden appearance of fresh spring water to mix with bourbon: that's one thing I've never much believed. Who has cool, clear, fresh spring water conveniently around? And besides, manly men don't water down good bourbon.
SUMMARY: 2.2 stars. Of the first 3 Travis stories, this falls in the middle: (#1, Deep Blue=3.2, #2, Pink=1.8. It's by far the most misogynistic of the first 10 in the series. (I'm going back and reading some early ones before I finish the series.) And Trav belongs on his boat in Ft. Lauderdale anyway. But overall I just didn't much believe the story: it was like MacDonald aimed darts at various scenes/plots/people written on notes on a wall, most of them cribbed from TV shows. Mona would have been a GREAT Madame of a saloon though: she'd have ruled the roost, and the book, the town, the sheriff, etc., had the author let her live.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
McGee repeatedly tells his love interest that all she ever has to say is "No". So naturally, they wind up (and this isn't a spoiler of the main plot itself) on a secluded island for an idyllic love affair in paradise. But still, the plot's the thing, and it gets off to a roaring, and very surprising, start within just a few pages, followed by numerous twists and turns.
1964 - 2nd Read You know all those great TV westerns like The Big Valley, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Wanted: Dead or Alive, etc., during which 99.99% of the time you believed every character knew all they needed to know about the wild west, even when the stories veered toward the fantastic, like in the show actually titled Wild, Wild West. Travis is part of the .01% that seemed out of place. Yes, the time frame is about 100 years later than Bonanza, but MacDonald describes a cabin we've all seen, and a cave, and how to handle a rattler in a cave, and the best gun to use for distance, etc. But Trav lives on a boat in Ft. Lauderdale...
HOOK - 3 stars: I was never convinced as to the real reason Travis is in Esmerelda, but this book does get off to a roaring start with a rather shocking death (it's quick, then over) and Travis is instantly on the run (again, not really sure why...)
PACE - 3 stars: A fast read but rather large font: the author doesn't waste words...except for the sex lecture.
PLOT/CRIME 2: Mona and her newest lover disappear: Trav knows Mona is dead, but he isn't sure about the professor/lover. The professor's death is rather original, but the story of Mona's husband and his allowance that he'll just give her another good trashing to put her in her place when she returns is very distasteful, and unbelievable.
CAST - 1 star: Didn't believe Trav knew all this stuff. Didn't believe the lovely, fabulous Mona would fall for a professor, didn't believe the fussy, uptight sister of the professor would...oops better stop. I didn't believe motivations. And I don't even think MacDonald/Trav knew enough about land deals and conglomerations to solve a murder or 2 here. I do like Trav, but oh he doesn't mind that Mona gets a good thrashing every now and then from her husband. Then, there is his much-too-long and repetitive sermon to a lady about how when a lady says no, real men back away. But then...guess what???
ATMOSPHERE - 2 stars: I did like how the Native American culture, most of the time, is portrayed, as they really look out for each other and are very leery (and should have been more so) of strangers. And there's a few CEOs who appear clueless. But I felt like I've seen these scenes (snake in a cave, rocks dropped on heads and sounding like exploding melons) too many times. And please, authors, don't give me this sudden appearance of fresh spring water to mix with bourbon: that's one thing I've never much believed. Who has cool, clear, fresh spring water conveniently around? And besides, manly men don't water down good bourbon.
SUMMARY: 2.2 stars. Of the first 3 Travis stories, this falls in the middle: (#1, Deep Blue=3.2, #2, Pink=1.8. It's by far the most misogynistic of the first 10 in the series. (I'm going back and reading some early ones before I finish the series.) And Trav belongs on his boat in Ft. Lauderdale anyway. But overall I just didn't much believe the story: it was like MacDonald aimed darts at various scenes/plots/people written on notes on a wall, most of them cribbed from TV shows. Mona would have been a GREAT Madame of a saloon though: she'd have ruled the roost, and the book, the town, the sheriff, etc., had the author let her live.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
McGee repeatedly tells his love interest that all she ever has to say is "No". So naturally, they wind up (and this isn't a spoiler of the main plot itself) on a secluded island for an idyllic love affair in paradise. But still, the plot's the thing, and it gets off to a roaring, and very surprising, start within just a few pages, followed by numerous twists and turns.
Read
January 31, 2012There is nothing like reading a book that was written the year you were born to make you realize that the world has, in fact, changed beyond recognition. This book, in particular, will also make you realize that whoa, feminism and the changes it has wrought were long overdue and probably saved your life by coming along when you were small. The scary thing is that I almost certainly read this book for the first time when I was a young teenager and soaking up all the Travis McGee I could get my hands on. At that point the casual ingrained sexism went right past me or - and this is the scary part - I soaked it all in and thought that yeah, this is how the world is. I am a girl - hell, I am even a big creamy bitch, as the book so charmingly states on the back cover (this is how it came to me this time around; my coworkers at the bookstore said, ooh, Felicity has to see THAT! and pulled it) - and that entitles me to act like an idiot while I wait for a big hairy man to come along and know better than me. Or, well, I could get shot in the first few pages. It's been a while now and Travis McGee hasn't shown up and I haven't been shot. Thank god, I think, for both.
Summary: the world was different then. And not just because they didn't have cell phones.
Summary: the world was different then. And not just because they didn't have cell phones.
August 12, 2008
Apparently the first three novels in John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series were published simultaneously in early 1964. A Purple Place for Dying was the third. I enjoyed it more than the first two, but it's still pretty similar, and the things I don't like about the series so far are still here in full force. McGee's musings on the ways of the world always seem as if they're supposed to be profound, but they're generally trite and dated. And there's always a frigid, neurotic, female character who needs McGee's sexual healing ... which wouldn't be so bad if the reader were not then always treated to pages of tiresome exposition about the sexual healing and what it all means. On the plus side, however, A Purple Place for Dying was tightly plotted, with a mystery that kept me turning the pages. Also, many of the descriptions of the Western landscape were really beautiful.
Read
September 5, 2018Crisp muscular prose, clean storytelling and the appealing bummy hero Travis McGee compensate for some dated Freudian stereotypes. The dark revelation at the finale is also handled well, and all in all, a good read.
May 29, 2023
12/2012
My only complaint was the physical book I was reading. I have built my John D Macdonald library by purchasing old paperbacks - very affordable. This one was an original 1964 paperback, I don't know if it had been read before. Very cool. But the pages wouldn't open all the way so it was a pain. That's all. On the upside, it had a very handsome photo of John D on the back, super young and attractive in his 40s (at 36, 40s seem that way I guess).
My only complaint was the physical book I was reading. I have built my John D Macdonald library by purchasing old paperbacks - very affordable. This one was an original 1964 paperback, I don't know if it had been read before. Very cool. But the pages wouldn't open all the way so it was a pain. That's all. On the upside, it had a very handsome photo of John D on the back, super young and attractive in his 40s (at 36, 40s seem that way I guess).
October 18, 2025
Travis McGee has met a middle-aged woman who wants to hire his help, but he's not really sure how or even if he wants to. She's a floozy and an immature off-putting spoiled lady with a new love interest whom she wants to run away with, but not before finding a way to take her estate with her, which her husband has a firm grip on in this remote place out west. While telling her this is really more of a legal problem than one he can actually help with, she is killed, and the local law doesn't believe his story when he tells it.
Verdict: The third entry in the Travis McGee series, "A Purple Place for Dying" (1964) is a better mystery and noir crime story than its predecessors but still obsessed enough on the fringes (seriously, the psychoanalysis and habits of the sister of the victim is just a distraction unrelated to the murder mystery and gets a hefty page count) it struggles with pacing and isn't thrilling except for one sequence towards the conclusion.
Jeff's Rating: 2 / 5 (Okay)
movie rating if made into a movie: R
Verdict: The third entry in the Travis McGee series, "A Purple Place for Dying" (1964) is a better mystery and noir crime story than its predecessors but still obsessed enough on the fringes (seriously, the psychoanalysis and habits of the sister of the victim is just a distraction unrelated to the murder mystery and gets a hefty page count) it struggles with pacing and isn't thrilling except for one sequence towards the conclusion.
Jeff's Rating: 2 / 5 (Okay)
movie rating if made into a movie: R
March 17, 2019
Excellent Travis McGee murder mystery. I love McGee's blend of casual, beach bum aura and his hardnosed attitudes and sense of reluctant morality. Very much reminds me of Magnum PI, though McGee is maybe a trifle more morally ambiguous.
September 4, 2019
Best one in this series so far. I’m really enjoying reading these books again & will continue.
August 18, 2009
For more background, refer also to my GoodReads review of John D. MacDonald’s first Travis McGee book, The Deep Blue Good-By. From what I’ve learned, that book, its sequel Nightmare in Pink, and this book were all written at the same time in 1964, and then released in consecutive months. As a result, they’re all cut from the same cloth, and all equally establish the back-story of one Travis McGee, "salvage consultant".
Once again, we find McGee as a fish out of water, this time out west. He’s called upon to help yet another damsel in distress, Mona, who wants a divorce from her husband. She suspects he’s been embezzling money from her trust fund. As McGee is debating whether or not to help her – he is broke and could use the money, but doesn’t think much of her – she is assassinated right before his eyes. This, of course, will not stand, and McGee sets off to solve her murder in what turns out to be classic (and somewhat routine) mystery-thriller fashion.
The story is better and more believable than the second book, but also a little more predictable. Excellent prose, especially for this genre.
Once again, we find McGee as a fish out of water, this time out west. He’s called upon to help yet another damsel in distress, Mona, who wants a divorce from her husband. She suspects he’s been embezzling money from her trust fund. As McGee is debating whether or not to help her – he is broke and could use the money, but doesn’t think much of her – she is assassinated right before his eyes. This, of course, will not stand, and McGee sets off to solve her murder in what turns out to be classic (and somewhat routine) mystery-thriller fashion.
The story is better and more believable than the second book, but also a little more predictable. Excellent prose, especially for this genre.
August 14, 2017
Slightly disappointing offering from the author I like to call the Michael Jordan of storytelling.
This is above average by any means, but what went wrong exactly here? The most interesting character aside from Travis McGee dies in the first chapter for starters and there's really just a poor recollection of her legacy throughout the novel. Mona Yeoman is just a pawn in something that's greater than herself, really. And so is McGee. He's stumbling in the dark a little bit in that one. The ending comes from nowhere. I mean it's an above average mystery by any means, but it doesn't feature much of McGee's sharp psychological insight that makes McDonald's novels so good because he doesn't have any visceral ties to the crime.
Blandly enjoyable.
This is above average by any means, but what went wrong exactly here? The most interesting character aside from Travis McGee dies in the first chapter for starters and there's really just a poor recollection of her legacy throughout the novel. Mona Yeoman is just a pawn in something that's greater than herself, really. And so is McGee. He's stumbling in the dark a little bit in that one. The ending comes from nowhere. I mean it's an above average mystery by any means, but it doesn't feature much of McGee's sharp psychological insight that makes McDonald's novels so good because he doesn't have any visceral ties to the crime.
Blandly enjoyable.
April 21, 2017
On my 2010 review of the Travis McGee series, this is the first of the novels that lived up to my memory. Travis is pulled in by an unhappy young wife to help her recover the estate left to her and stolen by her husband and he discovers that the story runs much deeper and becomes much more dangerous. It is gripping throughout. The characters are more fully drawn than in the previous novels and there is even mention of his "economist friend" Meyer, whom I know from experience will become on of my favorite recurring characters.
I had been contemplating a quick stop to reading this series, but this story provides the fuel to keep going.
I had been contemplating a quick stop to reading this series, but this story provides the fuel to keep going.
May 25, 2016
Definitely the most enjoyable so far, this is the 3rd Travis McGee story. He's developing into such an interesting, 3-dimensional character. The story was interesting, the mystery was solved without my assistance and the other characters had flaws, strengths. Very good... Looking forward to number 4, The Quick Red Fox.
October 10, 2012
In 1964 John D. MacDonald broke many of the plot rules for popular fiction, several of the main-character rules, and took the narrative drive into social commentary. He kicked literary ass with Travis McGee. Travis is one of my faves, but there is a love/hate thing for him on GoodReads. #3 in the series; I've read this one 5+ times. @hg47
April 23, 2017
John D MacDonald never fails to entertain. A Purple Place for Dying is another great addition to the series. Rarely about intricate puzzle plots, can always count on fully fleshed-out characters. I loved the novel. McGee is a great character and very real. Even when folks arent lying they never tell the whole truth.
August 10, 2025
Goodreads glitched and bounced my well thought out review. Damn.
Here's the short version: A Purple Place for Dying is mostly okay, but it is elevated by Travis McGee, who is one hell of a fascinating and well crafted protagonist. It's third place up against its predecessors, but it is definitely worth the read.
Here's the short version: A Purple Place for Dying is mostly okay, but it is elevated by Travis McGee, who is one hell of a fascinating and well crafted protagonist. It's third place up against its predecessors, but it is definitely worth the read.
September 11, 2018
One of the better Travis McGee books. Good story, well structured. Little contrived ( snake saves the day?! ) Otherwise pretty good. Liked it a lot.
May 5, 2019
As always, McDonald doesn't disappoint. His prose is far beyond pulp fiction or even genre fiction and his plotting and characterization are reliably unique, gripping, and entertaining.
November 30, 2016
This is the third novel in the original Travis McGee trilogy, all of which were originally published in 1964. Once again McGee is lured out of Florida and his beloved houseboat, “The Busted Flush”. He travels to Arizona, I believe (it’s not specifically mentioned in the book) to consider accepting a job from a young lady who believes her older husband is plundering her trust fund set up for her by her wealthy father. At first, McGee doesn’t like the way the job is shaping up but soon after meeting his potential client, she is blown away by an unknown sniper. While McGee has no financial reason to stick around and solve the murder, his sense of honor leads him to do so anyway. His PI license isn’t valid in this state so his efforts to both work with and work around the local sheriff are some of the best moments in the book.
The story turns into a fairly straight forward murder whodunit although with some unexpected twists and the obligatory red herrings. Like many readers, I tended to like this third book a little better than the first two in the series and in fact, most critics point to this novel as the lynch pin book wherein the character of Travis McGee finds his stride that will carry him through the rest of the 21 book series. I plan to continue my read of the whole thing, spaced evenly over the next several years.
The story turns into a fairly straight forward murder whodunit although with some unexpected twists and the obligatory red herrings. Like many readers, I tended to like this third book a little better than the first two in the series and in fact, most critics point to this novel as the lynch pin book wherein the character of Travis McGee finds his stride that will carry him through the rest of the 21 book series. I plan to continue my read of the whole thing, spaced evenly over the next several years.
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