JOHN D. MacDONALD
John Dann MacDonald (born 1918 in Sharon, Pennsylvania - 1986) was one of the 20th Century’s most successful popular authors. Almost 30 when he sold his first short story, he made up for lost time with hundreds of short stories under a variety of names and went on to write 78 books which sold over 70 million copies by one estimate. After that notable birth in our state, he grew up in Utica, New York, attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, quit during his sophomore year, went to Syracuse University, graduated in 1938 (meeting his wife-to-be), and went on to an MBA at Harvard University, ‘39. The Second World War intervened in what could have been a great business career. He entered as a lieutenant, worked for the OSS in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations, and was discharged as a lieutenant colonel in September 1945.
In 1949 he moved his family to Florida, eventually finding Sarasota to be home, and there the writing legend began. After an insanely obsessed stint at breaking into the pulp magazines (which were dying in the postwar years), his first novel, the excellent The Brass Cupcake, was published in 1951. His first Travis McGee mystery, a series that made his name golden and international, was The Deep Blue Good-by, published in 1964. Twenty-one novels make up the series, ending with The Lonely Silver Rain in 1985. They are listed here in alphabetical order by title, but the order in which they were written, which is useful, is appended below. On this page, after the McGee novels, those stand-alone titles still in print are listed.
As popular as he was and remains, MacDonald was also a writer’s writer, acclaimed and claimed as influential by scores of later writers from Kurt Vonnegut to Stephen King, from Carl Hiaasen to Dean Koontz. In his novels the cost is always counted, the right thing to do is the hard thing to do, and people in pain call out for justice and sometimes, always at cost, find it.
(1964) The Deep Blue Good-by
(1964) Nightmare in Pink
(1964) A Purple Place for Dying
(1964) The Quick Red Fox
(1965) A Deadly Shade of Gold
(1965) Bright Orange for the Shroud
(1966) Darker than Amber
(1966) One Fearful Yellow Eye
(1968) Pale Gray for Guilt
(1968) The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper
(1969) Dress Her in Indigo
(1970) The Long Lavender Look
(1971) A Tan and Sandy Silence
(1973) The Scarlet Ruse
(1973) The Turquoise Lament
(1975) The Dreadful Lemon Sky
(1978) The Empty Copper Sea
(1979) The Green Ripper
(1981) Free Fall in Crimson
(1982) Cinnamon Skin
(1985) The Lonely Silver Rain
Cinnamon Skin
Cinnamon Skin
From a beloved master of crime fiction, Cinnamon Skin is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat.
In the Florida Keys, a houseboat explodes in a giant white flash, instantly killing the honeymooners onboard. Travis McGee’s best friend, Meyer, loses not only his home and every single thing in it but his last living relative. Now he wants answers. And he and McGee plan to get them—or die trying.
“To diggers a thousand years from now, the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen.”—Kurt Vonnegut
If Travis McGee hadn’t arranged a lecture tour for his friend, Meyer would be dead. As it was, Meyer lent the John Maynard Keynes to his just-married niece, Norma, and her husband, Evan, hoping to give them the perfect honeymoon. Instead: tragedy. When a group of Colombian terrorists take responsibility for the brutal act, Meyer and McGee travel to Mexico to seek justice. Or payback.
Once south of the border, Meyer and McGee discover many things: Evan’s seedy past, a beautiful local named Barbara, a lethal drug cartel, and, perhaps, even Meyer’s long lost courage. But does Meyer, always content in McGee’s shadow, have what it takes to avenge the killing of the person he loved most?
Features a new Introduction by Lee Child