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.
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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. 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.
A Purple Place for Dying (Travis McGee #3) by John D. MacDonald
Nov 10, Cathy DuPont rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: 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 's. All fans of John D. MacDonald and Travis should check it out.
But a cautionary note, there are Just to make sure that readers of this review understand up front that Travis McGee is my best guy ever. But a cautionary note, there are spoilers scattered throughout. Of course, Travis is not a perfect man and he recognizes that but who is a perfect human being? With more time, I could check through D. 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 to 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 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.
If I get you out of this.
Just one word will do it. Say it when you mean it. 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. 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. And there are never enough kinds. And certainly not for you, my friend. This was the foolish end of all the foolish things, in a purple place for dying.
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I was too far from the bright water and the bright boats. View all 21 comments. 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 Slightly disappointing offering from the author I like to call the Michael Jordan of storytelling. 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. Sep 05, Carla added it. Crisp 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. Jan 30, Felicity added it. There 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 ha There 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. 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.
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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!
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. And not just because they didn't have cell phones. Jul 14, Dennis D. For more background, refer also to my GoodReads review of John D. Once again, we find McGee as a fish out of water, this time out west. 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. Oct 07, Tony rated it really liked it Shelves: McGee is recommended by a friend to see if he can help a young woman get money back from her husband who has been milking her estate for about fifteen years. It all started out as a guardian relationship, but ultimately turned into a marriage of convenience.
Other Books in This Series
When McGee meets with his new prospect out in the desert where she had a house he could use for the duration, a rifle shot cracks and the beautiful woman is killed immediately. In addition, the young man with whom she had planned to run off with when she left her husband also went missing. As in most of these thrillers, the ultimate goal is money. It turns out, though, that hers was only the beginning.
Aug 03, Adam rated it liked it Shelves: Apparently the first three novels in John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series were published simultaneously in early 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. A Purple Place for Dying Travis McGee isn't sure he wants to help Mona, a woman trapped in a marriage with a wealthy businessman whom she is convinced is stealing from her trust fund.
That is until he sees Mona shot dead on the cliffs near her cabin.
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But when he arrives at the scene, her body is gone. And there's no trace of them ever having met.
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Will Travis prove that what he saw was real, and unravel a complex murder web, in time to save his own skin? He is the all-time master of the American mystery novel' - John Saul Genre: Introduction by Lee Child A Deadly Shade of Gold: Bright Orange for the Shroud: One Fearful Yellow Eye: Pale Grey for Guilt: The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper: Dress Her in Indigo: The Long Lavender Look: Customer Ratings We have not received enough ratings to display an average for this book. More by John D. The Deep Blue Goodby.